Exulansis
by Yugisrose
Summary: The Veil is thinning and a simple trip to a family house in the middle of the woods goes awry. It is realized that a haunted mansion are the least of everyone's worries when the world is at stake.
1. Chapter 1

Okay so I started this fic many years ago and gave up on editing it hard core so I'm publishing it now. If anyone has any questions feel free to PM me!

Oh and these chapters _will_ get longer. Just so you know.

* * *

Chapter 1

"Yeah!" Joey said as they walked the dense forest path. "This is gonna be awesome! Just the five of us, in the woods without anyone to tell us what to do!"

The other four who walked beside him, and Yugi saw Tea smile at his enthusiasm. Tristan was the first to speak after Joey.

"Yeah, it was pretty cool of your Grandpa to let us stay here Yugi."

Yugi nodded shifting his backpack to the other side of his shoulder. "He hasn't been there in a long time so who knows what condition the house is in. I guess that's why he wanted us to check it out for him."

"It's kinda weird that he didn't tell us why he wanted us to look at it…"

"Hopefully it's still in good shape," Yami said next to Yugi. He was looking at the map with intent interest, and if it wasn't for Yugi walking next to him, he would have hit about twelve trees already. "I would hate to have to stay someplace…collapsible…"

"It shouldn't be that bad." Tea said. She was carrying more bags than anyone else, yet no one was quite sure what she brought. She almost tripped over an exposed root once or twice. "Even if it was, there's that Ranger's station supposedly. Didn't Grandpa say that the Ranger takes care of the place?"

"Yeah," Yugi said. "He said he knew the Ranger for a long time…"

"Speaking of which, isn't that the Ranger's station up there?" Tristan pointed up the path, and sure enough there was a small log cabin type house about a half mile up the trail. From where they were, they could see a blue pickup truck parked next to it.

"Yep! That's gotta be it, Right Yami?" Joey said falling in stride next to the ex-pharaoh and looking at the map as well.

"Well that's what the map says." he said finally looking up from the paper. His eyes narrowed upon looking at it but Yugi figured that it was just because he was staring closely at a map for the past hour and a half.

When they got up the station, they noticed about ten horses standing out on the other side of the house opposite of the truck. The strange thing about them, was that there was nothing containing them: no fence or rope securing them in place. It seemed as if the horses were waiting for something, and they weren't going to leave until they got what they came for. All ten of them stared as the gang walked inside.

The inside looked like a gift shop for hunters. A various assortment of animal skins were draped over the walls and were on the floor. Stuffed bear heads and deer antlers were on display all over the room, and photos of people with their kill would be tacked on the wall next to it. The small table next to the doorway was littered with pamphlets about the surrounding area and "Things to Do" brochures for tourists. Yugi saw Tea shudder as she looked around.

Upon fully entering, the bell chimed and a gruff looking old man walked in from another room on the right. He looked like your typical cowboy complete with spurs on his boots. His white hair looked like it was in the wind for too long. Chewing on what looked suspiciously like tobacco, he looked at everyone with a raised eyebrow as they entered.

"Can I help ya'll?" he said. Tristan chuckled at his accent but Tea was the first to speak.

"Uh, yes. We were wondering if you could tell us where the Moto place is please? It's a house deeper in the woods."

The man stared at them as if they all just grew tentacles from their faces.

"Ye don' wanna be goin' in there! There's something wrong with that place! Sumthin' _evil_."

Joey looked at him nervously. "What do you mean?"

"Horrible place. Horrible! I'm not goin' there, you can't make me!"

"Please sir," Tea said obviously not fazed by what the Ranger was saying. "We're just looking for directions. You don't have to come with us."

"The Veil is thinnin' I'll have ya know…Activity is pickin' up."

"That's nice." Tristan cut in looking nervous. "Can we just get directions?"

The Ranger looked at them, obviously trying to be angry but it seemed as if the fight drained from him. He sighed and walked up to them, picking up what looked like a trail guide from a nearby table.

"Alright," he said avoiding their gazes and handing them the map. "I'll let ye pass. But take the horses. They can make a quick escape if need be."

They all looked at each other in shock. Let them borrow horses? It seemed mad, Yugi thought, but nobody was complaining. That meant that they didn't have to walk the entire way there, and that they could actually reach the house before the sun set.

"Uh…thank you?" Yugi said. Everyone voiced their gratitude and the man showed them outside to the horses that they noticed earlier. There were quite a few of them, but the Ranger picked out seemingly specific horses for them and handed them the reins to their individual steed.

As the Ranger handed Joey his chestnut colored horse, Joey asked, "Now what where you saying about the house being evil?"

The man just gave him a "I feel sorry for you for having to go there but don't ask me to talk about it" look. That really didn't quell the uneasy feeling in everyone's stomachs. After he got everyone settled on their horses, the Ranger gave them all solemn looks, pointed them in the right direction and walked back towards the house. Before he walked inside, he looked back.

"Don' let the demons get ya," he said ominously. "The thinning veil will make it easy."

Yugi noticed that the Ranger seemed to stare at everyone for a second in turn but when the Ranger's eyes rested on him, the man's glare intensified. The man held his glare for a good ten seconds before heading back inside the cabin.

After he went inside, Joey looked at everyone. "What did he mean by that? Tell me one of you knows…"

"Just ignore him Joey," Tea said. "He's just trying to scare us."

"Yeah, plus if there was anything wrong with the house, Grandpa would have let us know…" Yugi said, but even as he said that, an uncertainty came into his mind. His grandfather was extremely vague about the piece of property and wondered what would have caused him to ask them to check it out in the first place.

Everyone was glad to be back on the trail after that. However, the air seemed to become colder, and the trail started to get darker. Yugi noticed Joey jumping a lot on the back of his horse and couldn't blame him. Even the horses had noticed the change in the atmosphere and every fifteen minutes or so they would all stop at the same time, and try to back up. Luckily, even though the Ranger didn't give them any sort of tutorial on riding horses, Yami was able to give them a quick go over on how to handle them. So even if the horses didn't want to continue on the set path, everyone was able to get them back on course fairly easily.

After about a half hour of silent walking, Yugi was sure he heard rustling in the bushes nearby, and he was positive that he didn't imagine it because his horse would react to it as well. Sometimes everyone else would hear it, but dismiss it as an animal or something else. Joey however was completely freaked out and every five minutes or so, he would say, "So…. does anyone else think that was weird?" or "I think we should turn back…. Anyone? Hello?"

After the fifth time Joey said, "Did you guys hear that?!" Tristan stopped his horse.

"Alright dude, you need to chill."

"I can't! This place is freakin' me out!" Joey stopped his horse, as did everyone else. "Does nobody else notice how creepy this forest is?"

"You're just being weird because of the way the Ranger was acting earlier." Tea said. Out of everyone, Yugi noticed that she alone seemed unafraid of the forest around them. He couldn't tell if it was ignorance, or denial. "There's nothing to be worried about Joey."

"I for one, don't blame Joey for being afraid of the forest," Yami said. Everyone looked at him is surprise. Tea glared at him as if to say, " _Not helping_!"

When Joey urged Yami to continue, he said, "There's something definitely weird about this place, so I don't think we should take the Ranger's warnings lightly."

"See?" Joey said frantically pointing at Yami. "If he's worried, I think we should be too!"

"No…Joey, I didn't mean-" Yami started to say but was cut off by his horse backing up suddenly. And it wasn't just _his_ horse, but everyone's horses started to do the same thing. They all tried to urge them forward but the animals seemed adamant on not going any farther up the path.

"Something's wrong…" Tristan said, now sharing in Joey's fear. "Why aren't they moving?"

"Maybe we should go where they want," Joey said and he started to turn his horse around. "Maybe they're trying to lead us away from danger or-"

Whatever Joey said next was lost to Yugi, as he looked to his left in the bushes. He didn't know what made him look, but something drew his attention to that particular spot. Yugi saw what looked like a pair of red eyes, staring at him through the frost bitten bushes and when he saw them, the whole world seemed to stop. Suddenly, he couldn't move no matter how much he tried, nor could he speak. All he could do was look at the eyes in those bushes. They had a certain look to them as if he could look in deeper and find worlds at the edge of the earth. Suddenly, the eyes widened ever so slightly, and it was as if something was being awoken from inside of him. It was almost as if something was forced upon him at blinding speed. The force was so blinding and forceful that if he could move, Yugi was sure it would have knocked him off of his horse. It wasn't until the eyes disappeared that Yugi could finally move again. He looked around, finally aware that all of the horses, including his own, were getting more freaked out by the second.

"I told you Joey, no!" Tristan yelled as he tried to gain better control over his horse. "We can't go back because you're too chicken to move forward."

"Look, I'm just saying," Joey took the slightest glance in Yami's direction. "If the horses are freaking out like this, it's not for no reason."

"Maybe it's just because the horses never went out this far in the woods before," Téa suggested. "They might not be used to going this far."

"Yeah, that must be it." Tristan slapped Joey in the back, as if telling him to relax. "See Joey? That's all it is."

"Don't be so sure." Yami spoke up. He was looking ahead of them, as if trying to see something that would not show its face to him. The Millennium Puzzle was glowing ever so slightly. "I think there's something in front of us."

Yugi looked at where Yami was looking and almost really did fall off of his horse. To his shock, Yugi saw five translucent figures standing in their path. They looked to be simple people at first, but then he noticed that some of them had injuries that most people would not still be standing if they had them. One of the girls on the side looked like her skull had been bashed in. A young male next to her had a knife sticking from his throat. All of them seemed to have injuries like that. To add to it all, Yugi noticed that he could see right through them. They stood stock still and their clothing did not even rustle to the slight chilly breeze that managed to find its way through the canopy.

" _Where did they come from?"_ he thought, aghast. It wasn't until Yugi looked closer that he noticed that their eyes were the same as he saw, not one minute ago. It was like looking into a deep, void, and if you looked for too long, you would lose yourself in them.

With a gasp, Yugi realized that they were they eyes of the dead.


	2. Chapter 2

Yugi looked back and forth from his friends to the ghostly apparitions, hoping to all the stars in the sky that they could see what he could see: the translucent corpses standing before them, glaring as if daring them to try and pass. However, to Yugi's disappointment, Joey Tea and Tristan seemed unaware of the specters that blocked their path, and the reason, Yugi realized, why the horses wouldn't go any further.

" _Well at least the horses know that they're there_ ," Yugi thought. " _But wait_ …"

It was then that Yugi realized that Yami could sense them. Maybe not see them with the naked eye, like how Yugi somehow could all of a sudden, but he definitely knew that they were there. He was definitely looking at them, that much was certain.

"You're crazy Yami," Tristan said urging his horse forward. It now suddenly seemed to obey him. "There's nothing there."

"Tristan, wait!" Yugi yelled realizing he was going straight towards the ghosts. He watched in horror as the group got angry and started to pull various weapons out from their various sized pockets and wounds. One pulled out a dagger, another an axe. Yugi was also pretty sure that another pulled out a fork.

Yami seemed to sense that something was wrong thankfully. "Tristan, come back!"

But it was too late, Yugi realized. The ghosts got to Tristan's horse faster than he could have thought possible for something that didn't have a living vessel. When the ghosts got to Tristan's horse, they used any weapon that they had and started to hack and slash at the poor animal. The horse completely freaked out turned and bolted so suddenly that Tristan fell back off of its back and hit the ground. The ghosts bolted after it, and if Yugi wasn't so worried for Tristan, he would have felt sorry for the horse.

"Tristan!" Joey was off his horse in a second and helped his friend up. "Are you ok?"

Tristan winced as Joey helped him to his feet. Everyone else got off their horses and gathered around him. "I think so…What was that all about?"

"Wow, you must have a hard head." Tea said. "That didn't hurt you?"

"Of course it hurt, but I didn't break anything…"

"Are you sure?" Yami said. Yugi noticed him looking down at the ground and followed his gaze. Large drops of blood were scattered around their feet and left a trail going back the way they just came from.

Tristan looked. "Oh man…that must be from the horse."

"It's not yours, right?" Tea said worriedly. She looked around Tristan as if to visually inspect him. "Guess not."

"No, it's not." Tristan scratched his head. "I'm so confused, what just happened?"

Tea started giving Tristan a list of possible scenarios of what could have spooked the horse such as hitting a thorn bush or being hit by a branch that fell from a tree. None of it made sense to Yugi but probably because he had seen what really happened.

Yugi wasn't sure why, but suddenly he could see these ghosts, and the others could not. What's more, is that he wasn't sure if he could tell the others yet. He wasn't sure if he could handle their questions and quizzical stares if he hadn't had a chance to soak it all in yet. So, when Tea had pacified everyone and Tristan got behind Joey on his horse, they continued up the trail as if nothing had stopped their progress. There wasn't much they could do for Tristan's horse. The sun was showing signs of setting and they had to find the house before it got to be too dark to see.

As they were walking up the trail, Yugi finally noticed how _strange_ he felt. It never occurred to him until he had a chance to gather his bearings but something about the way he felt just seemed off. He thought back to the pair of eyes in the bushes, and knew it had something to do with it. Maybe that's why he could suddenly see the ghosts now. But why would a ghost give him the power to see the dead? Nothing seemed to make sense at the moment, and Yugi hoped that things would clarify themselves before the day ended. He didn't want any more surprises.

"Hey Yugi," Tea said suddenly. "Where are you going?"

Yugi looked up to realize that he had steered his horse completely off course from where his friends were walking. They were twenty yards to his right, and he was starting to go through a dark trail that led away from where they were supposed to be going. He pulled the reins on his horse and quickly looked down the dark path, hoping to never have to go down that foreboding trail. Yugi got a strange feeling as he looked down the path…as if it was beckoning him to come in. As evil as it looked, the it was almost as if the path was trying to be inviting. It kind of freaked Yugi out.

"S-sorry, I wasn't paying attention," Yugi said and quickly turned around and brought his horse back with the rest of the group.

"Better be careful Yugi," Tristan smirked at him. "You might get lost."

Yugi had to hand it to him. For being thrown off his horse earlier, Tristan still seemed to be pretty confident and upbeat. Yugi wished he felt the same way.

"Nah, I'm paying attention now." he said and tried to leave it at that. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yami staring at him, waiting to be noticed and as he came to join everyone else, Yugi couldn't help but look at him. He had a look in his eyes that said, "Something's wrong. What is it?" Yugi tried to give the "I'll tell you later" look, which seemed to make Yami look more worried. Yugi didn't mean to, but if he was going to tell anyone about his experience today in a certain order, Yami would be first on the list.

For the next half hour, nothing out of the ordinary happened, and even Joey seemed to be a little more relaxed, even if it was obviously forced. Joey constantly looked behind him for fear of being snuck up on, and Tristan, having just been thrown off his horse, did not even argue with him for constantly doing so.

"Is this it?" Yami said suddenly.

In the light of the setting sun, they came up to what looked like a small mansion. It was made up of stone and looked to be three times the size of your regular sized house. The trees parted in the front walkway, yet curved inward as if they were waiting to grab anyone who walked down it. In front of it was a small courtyard that looked like it used to hold a large garden. Maybe once it would have looked grand and luxurious, but now layers and layers of vines and weeds covered the front lawn and travelled up to the roof of the mansion. A barn stood out back that seemed perfect for the horses, and it seemed that the old Ranger knew what he was doing in lending them their steeds. The three-storied mansion stood tall with the trees, yet far away from them so as not to be damaged if any one of them fell. Yet for some reason, all of the windows on the top floor were broken. A part of the roof looked like it started to cave in on the far right side and pieces of the stone looked like it was chipped in multiple places as if someone took a hammer to it. All in all, the place didn't look very safe to live in.

"I guess this is it?" Yami said looking at everyone for confirmation.

"I think so," Yugi said. "It matches Grandpa's description anyway…minus…"

"How bad it looks?" Joey said.

"Yeah."

"…Well should we go inside?" Tristan said getting off of Joey's horse. Everyone followed his example but didn't walk forward.

"I don't know… the place looks like it's going to cave in at any moment." Tea said. "Is it really safe?"

"Well I didn't go all this way and get scared out of my wits just to turn around." Joey said walking through the courtyard. "I'm goin' in!"

That's all it took for everyone to follow him. If the house was new, they could have just walked up to the front door. However, since it was not, they had to elude sticker bushes and walk around excessively large weeds that sprayed pollen every time it was disturbed, causing them all to sneeze vigorously.

As they neared the place, movement out of the corner of his eye caused Yugi to look to his right. When he looked he stopped abruptly. There, right next to the house, were two young girls playing together. They looked to be at the age of ten each, and their style of dress was way out of date. But what truly made Yugi do a double take was the look in their eyes. They danced and played as if they were having a great day, but when he looked at them, their eyes oozed of hatred and malice. The pupils were completely black, as if they weren't truly seeing what was in front of them. But that wasn't even the worst of it. When the girls turned their heads a certain way, Yugi could see that parts of their faces were burnt so badly, that the muscle and bone protruded from their faces. It was almost as if they were two faced-one side normal, and the other side, grotesque skull face. Yugi stared at them in revulsion, and eventually they started to imitate the dance of "Ring around the Rosy," spun around a few times and then disappeared into the side of the wall of the mansion.

"Yugi?"

Yugi snapped out of his daze to find Yami staring at him with a worried look. It was the look that made Yugi's stomach bubble with guilt when knowing that he couldn't say anything to make it go away. He couldn't say anything about it yet…he wasn't ready.

"What's wrong?" he asked. Yugi just avoided his eyes.

"It's nothing…" And he rushed to catch up with Joey, Tea and Tristan who were now near the front door. By the time he and Yami caught up with them Joey had just opened the door, and they all carefully went inside.

They walked in to a large foyer, with stairs leading up at the far end, and a doorway on each of the left and right. The walls looked like your stereotypical haunted house with its spider web encrusted candle chandelier, grimy mirrors, and old pictures whose eyes seemed to follow you as you walked by. It did nothing to quell Yugi's fear of sleeping in a house for five days with spirits that he could now see.

"Wow, your Grandpa sure knows how to live good Yugi." Joey said looking at the room in awe. "I wonder why he didn't wanna live here?"

"I'm wondering why he sent us here to check it out and stay here for a while when he didn't want to live in it himself." Yugi said.

"Only one way to find out!" Tristan said walking towards the doorway on the left. "Let's check out this place."

Everyone followed him and it led into what looked like a living room. The couches and tables were still there, albeit they were covered in dust and cobwebs. There was no lighting or anything that could give off a light, so Tea went into her backpack and grabbed a flashlight. Although there was light pouring in from the windows from the dying sun, it didn't seem to be enough light to see everything. At the end of the room, there was a fireplace which Joey was looking at eagerly.

"Did anyone bring a match or something? We should have a fire!"

"Yeah, I'm good with that!" Tristan said, already looking in his backpack for his lighter. Tea shined the flashlight on them which made them shield their eyes. "Oi!"

"Guys, wait until we've checked the whole place out first." she said. "What if the chimney is broken at the top or something and you catch us all on fire?"

Joey rolled his eyes. "C'mon Tea, that's not gonna happen."

"It could!"

"Guys, how about Yugi and I go upstairs and check it out?" Yami said pointing to a closed door that no one else noticed before. "You three can stay down here and check out the kitchen."

"Kitchen?" Joey perked up like a dog that's caught on to a scent. "Yeah! Let's go look for it!"

"You know there won't be any food in there, right?" Tristan said, following Joey and Tea through the doorway. After the door closed, Yugi could hear Joey say, "Canned food lasts a long time!"

"Are you ready?" Yami asked.

Yugi looked at him and knew the real reason why Yami wanted some alone time with him but followed him all the same. They both exited the room and climbed the stairs in the foyer, which was surprisingly stable despite how old and under kempt it was. As they climbed it, Yami brushed his hands off the side of his shirt after touching the railing.

"This place is very dusty."

"Yeah, it's been abandoned for a really long time." Yugi said, trying to keep his voice light, but it seemed harder to do when he was actually trying. "I guess that Ranger wasn't taking care of it like Grandpa hoped…"

When they got to the top, the hallway curved towards around the building. They followed it and found multiple doors that looked like they could be bedrooms. There were five doors on each side of the hallway, and at the very end, were more stairs that no doubt, led to the third level. There wasn't much light due to the lack of windows in the hallway, so Yami lit another flashlight so that they could properly explore.

Yugi opened one of the doors and found a bathroom, which was good to know that the place had at least one. Out of curiosity, he turned the faucet handle and was surprised to see water come out like a recently used one. Yugi then turned off the faucet and closed the door behind him. Upon turning towards the end of the hallway did he see something that shocked him:

An old man was standing in front of the door that led to the third floor. He was dressed in an old farmer's outfit, complete with the wicker hat and the piece of straw hanging out of his mouth. But like the small children that Yugi saw outside, this man had a look in his eyes that wasn't alive, and wasn't nice. Yugi stared at him, and the man stared back, yet didn't do anything for which Yugi was grateful. But he was sure not to take his eyes off of the man for too long, in case he turned around and found the farmer closer than when he looked before.

Yami must have noticed his nervousness because he started the conversation that Yugi was expecting and dreading at the same time.

"Alright Yugi, what's going on? Something's wrong…"

Yugi positioned himself so that he could look at Yami and still see the man, which made him feel a little better. "I'm sorry but…"

He hesitated, wondering how to go about telling him this, but then decided to be blunt.

"There are ghosts all over the place."

Yami stared at him for a second in surprise at his blunt attitude. So then Yugi told him of what happened earlier and how he could suddenly see the apparitions and what actually happened to Tristan's horse. When Yugi was done, Yami looked nervous.

"You're sure they're not friendly?"

"Yeah…they're…" Yugi shuddered at the remembrance at the ghosts he saw earlier. "They're not nice. But none of them tried to hurt us yet."

"Except for Tristan's horse." Yami reminded him.

"And the one that's at the end of the hallway. By the looks of him, he wants to kill _something_."

Yami whirled around to face the end of the hallway, stared for a second, and then looked at Yugi with an eyebrow raised.

"Are you sure?"

Yugi looked at the man, who looked angrier now that he alerted Yami of his presence. "Positive. Why don't you use the Puzzle to try and see them? "

Yami looked down at the Millennium Puzzle around his neck. Since he and Yugi gained their own bodies, the item had become something that neither of them really needed, yet kept around for nostalgia sake. It still had its powers, but the two of them decided that the world was better off when the power was left undisturbed. Now however, since they arrived at this mansion, Yugi felt that the need for its power was growing.

"I'm not sure," Yami said uncertainly. "I don't use the Puzzle for things like this often, and that time with Tristan's horse was an accident…"

"Just try," Yugi urged. He wanted to see how the Puzzle worked and maybe Yami would be able to see what he sees. It was worth a shot anyway.

"Alright," Yami closed his eyes and the Puzzle gave a soft but faint yellow glow that shined easier with the darkness that covered the hallway. After thirty seconds, the glow stopped and Yami opened his eyes again. "I think I see now. There definitely is something at the end of the hallway, and some things downstairs too…"

Yugi blinked. "Oh, you saw other things too?"

Yami looked at him uncertainly. "Well it's more like sensing, unlike you who can see these things with the naked eye. Despite what a lot of people think, there's a big difference between the two. And it's a lot easier with the Puzzle. Without it, it takes me a lot longer to tell where they are."

Yugi looked at the man at the end of the hallway and disconcerted to see that he was, if possible, angrier than he was before. His jaw was clenched, fists shaking, and looked like he was debating on coming up to them. There would be points where he would look like he was about to stride over, but then think twice and stay where he was. During those periods, the man turned in such a way that Yugi could see what looked like a knife sticking out of his side, oozing transparent blood. Yugi shuddered and backed up.

"Let's go back downstairs." he said, "I don't want to stay with him any more…"

Yami looked at him sadly. "Alright."

They turned around and Yugi made sure to keep an eye on the guy for as long as possible before turning away to go back downstairs.

"When do you plan on telling the others about this?" Yami said quietly. "They would want to know…"

"…Soon." Yugi said and Yami said no more.

They retraced their steps and found where Tea, Joey and Tristan were before, but they weren't there now.

"Hmm, I guess we'll just have to explore until we find them," Yami said. The room that he sent them into was not the kitchen, but a pantry, with lots of cabinets. It was obvious that they were looked through, but they were all empty. In the next room over, they could see the shining of a flashlight so they followed it.

Joey, Tea and Tristan had found the kitchen, and were attempting to raid everything that could have food in it. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any food, anywhere.

"I told you Joey," Tristan said. "Good thing we brought our own food."

"Hey, you can't blame a guy for keeping his hopes up," Joey said closing one of the food closets.

Yugi had to admit, the kitchen was nice. The countertops looked like they had once been nice with floral decoration, and a once shiny sink and fridge. While everything was old fashioned, they could have once been top of the line. Tea must have been thinking the same thing because she asked the question that was in Yugi's mind.

"So, if Grandpa was willing to put this much money into the place, why did he leave?"

"Yeah, this is a nice place!" Tristan said. "I wouldn't mind living here, once it's fixed up a bit."

The three of them suddenly noticed Yugi and Yami's arrival and walked towards them.

"Hey, so how was it upstairs? Is it safe?" Tea asked.

"Well, we found the bedrooms, and there is a bathroom up there as well," Yami said. "But we decided not to go on to the third floor without more light."

He held up his flashlight that didn't seem to give off much light.

"Hey, I have another flashlight we can use," Tristan said and he pulled out his flashlight which seemed to have better battery power. "See?"

Yugi breathed a sigh of relief. He was glad that Yami understood that he wasn't ready to broadcast his new ability to everyone just yet, and was even more grateful that Yami remembered to make up a good cover story as to why they didn't explore the third floor like they originally said they were going to, because _he_ forgot.

"Alright so I'll go with ya Yami," Tristan said, holding up his superior flashlight. "Maybe we can find some matches to light these candles or something."

As Yami and Tristan went to walk out of the room, Yugi said, "Be careful." Yami gave him a meaningful look and the two of them walked out to go back upstairs.

"Alright, so how about we explore the other side of the house?" Joey said rubbing his hands together.

So Yugi, Joey and Tea made their way back to the foyer to check out the room that was on the other side. When they entered, they had to use all of their flashlights because there was absolutely no light coming in from outside due to the lack of windows. When the lights were on, the three of them gasped in wonder at the room.

It looked like someone's private study, with plush couches, bookshelves that were still packed with books, and a fireplace at the end. Even under all of the dust, it was easy to tell that the wood that made up everything was made from expensive dark wood. The walls were also different from the rest of the house. While the rest of the mansion was made of stone, this part was made up of brick and granite. This definitely looked to be the most expensive room in the house.

"Oh wow," Tea said. "If we could just put some lights in here, and clean up a bit, this would be a real nice room!"

"Yeah, and we could add a mini fridge here," Joey said pointing at a bare spot in between two of the bookshelves. "And the TV can go here…"

As Joey was picturing how he would remodel the room, Yugi looked to the fireplace and saw the old man again, staring at him. Yugi figured he should have been expecting something to be in the room, but somehow it still surprised him, and it surprised him even more that it was the same man from upstairs. He still looked livid and that he wanted nothing more than to take the knife sticking out from his side and run Yugi through with it. But something was holding him back, and Yugi wasn't quite sure what that was. Nonetheless, Yugi wanted to get as far away from this man as possible.

"Oh, hey, I think I hear Yami calling us," Yugi said quickly fabricating the lie and inching towards the door. "We should go and see what they want."

Joey and Tea luckily found nothing unusual about this so they followed Yugi out the door, only to find the foyer completely quiet.

"Are you sure you heard him Yugi?" Tea asked looking up the stairs. "I don't see them…"

"Maybe I was just imagining things…" Yugi said. He still felt nervous, like the man was still staring at him, waiting to make his move. Joey suddenly looked at him strangely as if he was just starting to think something was up. Yugi tried hard to pretend that he didn't notice him staring and focused on the room that they just left. Although the study was dark, Yugi was sure he could feel the old man staring at him, much like he was before. Joey looked like he was going to say something but then Yami and Tristan came down the stairs at that moment turning their flashlights off as they came into the foyer.

"Hey, good news," Tristan said. "The chimney is in one piece, so we can make a fire if we can find the wood."

"Awesome!" Joey said. "But maybe we should think about food too. I'm starved."

Tea rolled her eyes. "If you guys get the wood and start a fire, we can cook some of those hot dogs we brought."

That's all it took to get Joey and Tristan out the door in search of firewood. Tea went into the living room to tidy up around the fireplace. Yugi was about to follow her when Yami put a hand on his shoulder. When Yugi turned to look at him, he had a worried look on his face.

"Look," he said. "When we went upstairs, I felt something…odd."

"Like what?" Yugi asked.

"I'm not sure, but it was definitely powerful, and really dangerous. I just want you to promise me that you'll never go up there…okay?"

That caught Yugi by surprise. Whatever was dangerous enough to make Yami feel uncomfortable was never good news.

"Alright, I promise."

Yami seemed to sigh in relief. "Thank you…" And with that he followed Tea into the living room.

Yugi stood alone in the foyer thinking about Yami's warning. What was it that had Yami so spooked? And if was so dangerous and powerful, why didn't it do anything when Yami and Tristan went to the third floor? There were so many questions that Yugi had that it also brought up a new one that seemed to come up a lot:

Why can't they ever have a normal vacation?


	3. Chapter 3

Hearing Tea scream brought Yugi out of his thought process and had him running into the next room where she and Yami were supposedly cleaning the fireplace. When he entered, he saw what puzzled him at first: Tea was standing on top of one of the dirty sofas, shooting dust wherever she was standing, and she was looking at something at the floor with horror. Yami was standing by the fireplace, looking back and forth to Tea, and whatever she was looking at on the floor. Yugi walked over, and upon closer inspection, realized that she was cowering over a mouse. It was standing at the end of the couch, looking up at her as if wondering why she screamed.

Despite what had happened earlier that day, between the look on Yami's face and the fact the mouse seemed quite unafraid when Tea was totally the opposite, Yugi had to choke back a couple of laughs. It was definitely a funny situation to walk in on.

"Everything okay Tea?" he asked holing his hand out to her so she could get down. However, she didn't take her eyes off of the little rodent that now seemed to be taunting her, and running up and down the couch looking up at her.

"Ew, ew ew! Get it away! Get it awaaaay!"

Yami, hiding back a smirk, walked up to the mouse and shoved it lightly with his shoe. The mouse, suddenly frightened by the contact, ran off and disappeared in a hole in the wall. It took them a couple of minutes to get Tea off of the couch because she was positive that there were more (which there probably were somewhere but they weren't going to tell her that) but eventually she finally got down.

"I hate mice…" she shivered walking back over to the fireplace. "They're so creepy."

"Don't worry Tea," Yami smirked. "You probably scared them _all_ off by now."

"Ha, ha, very funny."

Suddenly, Joey and Tristan came into the room carrying large bundles of firewood. They dropped them off next the fireplace and brushed themselves off.

"I guess you guys found the firewood alright," Tea said looking at the giant pile.

"Yeah well, the place is surrounded by trees," Tristan said. "It's not exactly that hard."

"But I wouldn't recommend going _in_ the woods," Joey said looking at everyone with a disturbed look. Yugi immediately felt nervous.

"Why?" he asked.

"Joey thinks that he heard screaming in the woods," Tristan said before Joey could respond.

"Well I did!"

"Then why didn't _I_ hear anything?"

"Probably because you were too busy humming 'Poker Face' to yourself." Joey smirked. Tristan immediately turned red.

"I was not!"

"Guys, stop," Yami said. They complied, but still glared at each other while Tea rolled her eyes. "Joey, where did you hear the screaming?"

Joey stopped his glaring contest with Tristan to look at Yami. "It was really close: nearby where the horses are. I walked in a little bit because I thought there was actually someone out there, but I didn't see anyone. The woods were completely empty. So if you want more wood, I'm not doin' it!"

Joey sat on the dusty couch to prove his point, looking disturbed.

"You know Joey," Yami said. "Tea screamed earlier at a mouse, so that might be what you heard."

"No, it was from inside the forest."

"Wait," Tristan smirked. "You were screaming at a mouse?"

"It's okay Joey," Tea said ignoring Tristan and throwing some wood into the fireplace. "I think this firewood will be enough for two nights."

As the day wore into night, everyone started to clean up a little bit by ridding the place of dust, and cleaning up their respected bedrooms. There were enough rooms on the second floor for each of them to have their own room. Yugi's room was the one closest to the bathroom, which worked because that meant that he was farthest from the third floor entrance, which Yami closed and told everyone that it was unsafe. Yugi wasn't the least bit curious as to what lay beyond it, so he was glad for that.

Somehow, Yami found the entrance to the basement in the pantry room, which was concealed behind one of the cabinets, almost like a secret passage way. So that led to the darkest part of the house, which nobody was eager to explore. However, Yami found it necessary to do so, in case someone was living down there that they didn't know about. Having the house abandoned for so long, you never know what you may find in it. Reluctantly, Yugi agreed to go with him, mostly because nobody else wanted to go down and Yugi didn't want Yami going by himself.

They brought two of their best flashlights and carefully climbed down the stairs. There must have been thirty stairs, but once they reached the bottom, they found that the floor was nothing but dirt. Upon closer inspection of the room itself, it seemed that it was someone's hang out spot at one point. Posters that had fallen to the floor that looked like they had once been taped up to the cement wall. Chairs were all huddled together as if someone just got out of them and were planning to come back to them soon…and they were all facing each other in a big circle, as if it was a meeting place. A rug sat in the middle of it, almost completely concealed by the dirt, and all around there were obvious signs that mice frequented this room. Dig spots and droppings were almost in every corner, and their footprints littered the ground.

"I don't think Tea would like it in here," Yugi commented. Yami nodded and started to walk around the room, examining everything. Yugi decided to stay close to him, just in case.

After a couple of minutes, Yugi began to feel nervous, and he wasn't sure why. However, that became apparent after he saw multiple figures hiding behind the stairs. There must have been at least five of them, and they would constantly peek their head out as if trying to hide the fact that they were spying, and if either one of them moved in the slightest, they would disappear back behind the staircase. But it wasn't their presence that creeped him out, but the fact that almost their entire bodies were skeletons. The only parts of their bodies that had flesh remaining on them were the top of their skulls, where the hair grew, parts of their chests, and parts of their face. Yugi didn't know why they looked like that, when all the other spirits in the house had all of their flesh, but he was more intent on getting out of the basement as quickly as possible at that point.

"Yami," he said trying to sound as normal as possible. "Are you done yet?"

In the small amount of light, Yugi could see Yami look over at him quickly, with a nervous look.

"…What's wrong? Is there something down here?"

Yugi sighed to try and get rid of his nervousness. Despite him trying to act as if nothing was wrong, Yami still picked up on it. He guessed that's what you get for sharing a body with someone for a few years.

"Yeah. They…don't look right." Yugi said. It was the best way of putting it without describing it in horrible detail. "They're under the stairs though."

"They?"

"Yeah, there's …a few of them."

"Alright, let's go." Yami said, and led the way back to the stairs. They both walked quickly as to escape the darkness of that basement.

However, as they climbed the stairs, something solid grabbed Yugi by the ankle. Even through his sock, he could feel the boniness of the fingers and how little flesh remained. The act made him trip, and in that split second before he fell to one knee, he had a sudden vision in his mind.

A scene came into his mind of a red sky over a city. The people of the city were screaming. There was chaos everywhere and no one was trying to quell the fear. A dragon soared in the sky and little creatures that resembled imps were climbing buildings and smashing windows. People were running in circles and were either pointing at the sky in fear or trying to escape a rouge monster that popped out of nowhere. Yugi wasn't sure what was going on but it seemed apocalyptic and game changing. Someone was controlling fire with their hands and tried to attack the dragon in the sky but missed, and the attack fizzled out. The dragon seemed enraged by the attack and knocked over a building…

By the time his knee hit the stair, the vision had stopped, and the hand had disappeared from holding his ankle. He quickly got back up and rushed up faster up the stairs before Yami even knew anything happened. When they exited the basement, Yugi practically slammed the door shut and briskly walked to the other side of the pantry. Yami walked up to him with a concerned look.

"Are you alright? You're pale as a ghost," he said.

Despite the fear and confusion that just swept through him, Yugi couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at him. It took a couple of seconds for Yami to realize what he said.

"Oh…Sorry, bad choice of words…"

Yugi took a deep breath to steady his breathing. "I just…I don't want to be around them…that's all... Something was off about them."

"Well, let's make sure nobody goes down here then…" Yami said and closed up the entranceway to the basement by pushing the pantry door in front of it again.

Yugi thought about the vision he saw, and decided not to tell anyone, because it confused him, and he wouldn't know how to really explain it anyway. He got a lot of information in a split second and wasn't even sure why he saw it. Once Yami was sure that Yugi was okay, he suggested to reunite with Joey, Tea and Tristan to see what they were up to, and to tell them to add the basement to the list of places in the house that they should not go to.

Soon it got dark, and Yugi was glad that Tristan found the lighter that he packed so that they could light up the dusty candles. Soon it became light enough that they could walk around without bumping into everything. Eventually it got to the point where Joey insisted on making a fire in the fireplace because he was starving. He got it started pretty quickly, and in five minutes, he had grabbed one of the skewers he had brought with him and started cooking his dinner with it.

"Man, hotdogs are the best!" he said watching the piece of meat cook with a watering mouth. Tristan sat next to him with an amused expression on his face.

"That didn't take long," he said. He threw another log into the fire, careful to avoid Joey's food, and the fire started to grow.

That's when the atmosphere suddenly changed.

Yugi could feel it…somehow. A powerful, yet maddening energy was starting to surface. It was as if something was stirring upstairs…awakening from a long slumber, and it was due to the fire that Joey and now Tristan were cooking on.

"Um guys…" he said, but it must have been too quiet, because no one seemed to hear him. So, he repeated himself, but made his voice louder. " _Guys_ , I don't think we should be doing this…"

This time, Yami looked at him worriedly. "What's wrong?"

By the time everyone else looked at the two of them, the entire house started to quake. Old picture frames fell off the walls, and all of the flames that were on the candles suddenly went out all at once, as if a large breeze extinguished them. The shaking only lasted for ten seconds, but Yugi knew that it wasn't the end of it. The fire had to go out.

"What in the world was that?" Joey asked, his eyes wide. He didn't even seem to realize that he was burning his hot dog.

"We have to put this fire out." Yugi said. Without waiting for an answer, he went up to the logs, carefully kicked them out onto the bricks and started stamping them out.

"Dude!" Tristan tried to save the fire by kicking the logs back to where they belonged. "What are you doing?"

" _Stop_ ," Yugi said sternly to Tristan. He didn't mean to have it come out so harshly, but if this thing…whatever it was, woke up completely, they were in trouble. However, Tristan whether he was shocked or sensed the severity of the situation, Yugi didn't know, but he backed off, and allowed him to kill off the fire. Smoke still wafted up the chimney, but Yugi hoped it was still enough.

Then the house shook again, and Yugi thought he could hear growling mixed in with it. He felt terrified of whatever it was, but he was sure now as to why Yami wanted everyone to stay away from the third floor. It was if the growling was radiating through the walls. But again, after ten seconds, the shaking stopped, and all was still. After about a minute of complete silence in the pitch black darkness, Tea stood up.

"W-what was that?" she said in a small voice. Joey and Tristan stood up as well. Suddenly there was a click and everyone looked over to see Yami lighting one of the candles.

"Yugi's right," he said nervously. "We can't use that fireplace."

"Alright what's going on?" Tristan said looking out the window as if expecting to see devastation outside, but all was quiet. "It was almost like an earthquake."

Yugi looked at Yami and knew that they were going to have to explain. Some things, but not everything.

So Yami explained to Tea, Tristan and Joey about how the house had a lot of spirits in it, and how there was a particularly nasty one sleeping upstairs. As Yami was explaining how the fire almost woke it up, Yugi just so happened to look over at the window and saw shadows passing in front of it. He could feel what color that was left in his face drain from it as he saw how many shadows that were walking around. There were no less than thirty of them darting back and forth.

Yugi guessed it was because of how dark it was at the moment as to why he could only see their silhouettes walking around. But it seemed that the spirits were restless. Having whatever it was upstairs almost awaken was probably just as frightening to the spirits as it was to them. Yugi looked around and realized that it wasn't just in front of the window, but everywhere in the house that the ghosts were running around. A catastrophe could have just taken place.

Two small boys ran around him screaming something incomprehensible and they disappeared through the wall. Yugi started to pay attention to the conversation that everyone else was having just so he could keep his mind off the spirits that kept walking past him.

" …. That's why I locked that door upstairs. Sorry to not tell you guys but I never thought something like this would happen." Yami said looking shameful. Yugi immediately started to feel bad because it was partially his fault too.

"Hey, don't feel bad," Joey said slapping him on the back. "I probably woulda' done the same thing too."

"Yeah, besides," Tea said. "At least we're all safe, and that's what matters."

"So, what are we going to do about food?" Tristan asked looking at their poor fire. "Do you think we'd be able to get away with having a fire outside instead?"

Yami looked thoughtful. "I guess as long as it's not too close to the house…"

"Awesome, cause uh…" Joey held up what used to be his hot dog. It was not nothing but a black mass on the end of his skewer. "I don't think I can eat this."

Tea laughed which seemed to lighten the mood. "Well then let's get this wood outside, shall we?"

As she and Yami helped Joey get the firewood outside, Yugi pulled Tristan aside.

"Look, I just wanna apologize for…yelling at you when I was trying to put out the fire…" Yugi said feeling ashamed of himself. It was true that he didn't mean it, but it also scared him that it came out that way. He never had that happen to himself before, and hoped that it was just the stress starting to get to him or something.

"Hey, it's no biggie," Tristan said. "You were just scared that's all. I know I was. By the way, what gave you and Yami the idea that it was the fire that was bothering the thing upstairs?"

"Uh…" Yugi had to do some quick thinking. "Well…. because the chimney went up there and…I thought that if I was sleeping up there and there was smoke blowing at me, I'd be upset too…um…"

Yugi found it to be a pretty poor explanation, but Tristan seemed to think it was pretty logical.

"Yeah, I guess your right…" Tristan looked to be in thought for a second, and then looked at Yugi. "Hey, are you feeling alright?"

"…I guess, why?"

"I dunno, maybe it's just the lack of light, but you look really pale. Are you sick?"

Yugi shrugged, trying to do so nonchalantly. "Nah, It's just been a long day."

He then went over to the rest of the log pile, got the wood and proceeded to follow everyone else outside leaving Tristan behind him.

In fifteen minutes, they had a nice fire going near the borderline of the forest. Joey had already eaten a hotdog and was already cooking his second, while everyone else was just settling in.

"This is pretty cool though," Tristan said while putting his hotdog on his skewer. "It's like we're camping."

"Yeah, except instead of staying in a tent, we're staying in the world's most haunted house." Joey said rolling his eyes in exasperation. "Now, _that's_ a vacation."

Tea had gotten sodas for everyone and had just passed them out. "Well as long as they don't bother us, I don't see why we can't do what we've been doing before. It should be fine."

"They haven't bothered us yet," Tristan said, opening his coke can. "Hopefully it'll stay that way."

"Just don't go on the third floor," Yami said, looking at his hot dog strangely. "Am I doing this right?"

Tristan laughed, and made sure that Yami wasn't burning his food. Everyone still found it amusing that Yami never cooked over a fire before, even if it did make sense. As a past Egyptian pharaoh, he wouldn't have needed to cook like this…or even cook at all.

Without even looking at it, Yugi picked up his soda and drank it. Only after he swallowed it, did he notice that it had a strange taste. He looked at it, and was shocked to see that his soda was a sickly green color. Even in the limited lighting, it was highly noticeable. Yugi looked around at everyone else and nobody else seemed to have a problem with their sodas, which he found odd.

A small sound caused Yugi looked around and see a small child just behind one of the trees. It looked like a small boy, around five years old. He had the same deadened look in his eyes, and had an air about him of a child who knew he'd done wrong, yet was happy about it. But what struck Yugi most about the kid was that even as a ghost, the little boy looked incredibly thin. Even though he was see-through, the child's ribs stuck out from his shirt and his cheeks were so hollow that he may not have eaten for months.

Yugi knew immediately that this child was the reason why his drink looked and tasted strange. But what truly worried him was that he drank some of it…would it make him sick? He wanted to ask the kid a bunch of questions, but as soon as he thought it, the little boy walked farther in the woods and disappeared from sight.

"Yugi, your hotdog is burning," Tea said and pulled it out. The hotdog was just as black as Joey's first one. But Yugi felt that even if it wasn't burnt, he still wouldn't want to eat it. A sudden chill went over his body, as if that small sip of soda that he drank was spreading, and it made Yugi nervous. Even though he was hungry, Yugi felt that if he ate anything, it would make him sick.

"Here, I'll get you another one," she said bringing out the pack, but Yugi waved her away.

"It's okay, I'm actually not hungry right now anyway."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"You don't know what you're missing," Joey said with his mouth full, yet somehow everyone could understand him. It was like he had practiced talking with his mouth full for his entire life. "These hotdogs are amazing."

"You think _all_ food is amazing," Tristan said.

"You bet!"

Over the next hour they sat by the fire talking about random things, and Yugi kept a lookout for any other spirits that came by. Around that time, a few ghosts drifted by and checked them out, but didn't seem interested. The old man that Yugi saw a few times earlier that day came back and was watching him with that same look in his deadened eyes. So when it came time for the fire to go out, Yugi was immensely relieved. Hopefully after a night's sleep, this weird thing with seeing dead people would just go away overnight.

When the five of them reentered the mansion, they all hesitated.

"Should we sleep upstairs?" Tristan asked. "It's safe, right?"

"I think so," Yami said. "That thing is sleeping again, so as long as no one disturbs it, we should be fine."

"Easier said than done," Joey said nervously. "How will we know if we woke it up?"

"I guess the same thing will happen again…you know with the mini earthquake," Tea said and they all walked upstairs.

When everyone got to their respective bedroom doors, they all hesitated again, and looked at each other, as if to be sure that it was safe. Even Yami looked nervous.

"Well, goodnight," Yugi said. Everyone said the same end went to bed.

Yugi figured he got about an hour of sleep before being woken up by a sudden cold draft that swept through him. Trying to ignore it, Yugi tried to go back to sleep. But a loud bang woke him up fully. He immediately got up, and saw the old man at the foot of his bed, staring at him.

"Ack!" Yugi shouted in surprise. He caught himself, not wanting to wake everyone else up, and spoke softer. "Would you leave me alone please? I don't like people watching me while I'm asleep."

The old man just glared at him for a couple of seconds, but surprised Yugi when he actually spoke and said, "Soon…. _soon_ …" and walked through the wall on the left, out of sight.

Yugi looked after him for a second, wondering if he could go back to sleep after that. He sat in his bed for another half hour, listening to random and sporadic knocks on the walls before deciding he would get a bottled water downstairs. He crept out of his room into the hallway, which thankfully was deserted of anything, and made his way downstairs. He made it halfway down the stairs before noticing what lay below.

The entire foyer was completely crowded with spirits and they covered the entire room. They ranged from all different ages, sizes, and mortal injuries. Yugi could only just stand there with his mouth agape at how many were crowded into one spot. But what Yugi _didn't_ notice right away that he did now, was that the fact that every single one of them was staring directly at him. It was as if he interrupted a highly important meeting, which Yugi thought, he probably did.

"Sorry," he said, slowly backing back up the stairs. "Go back to…whatever it was that you were doing…sorry…"

Yugi was relieved to get back into his room, and even more relieved that none of them followed him.

"Note to self," he mumbled. "Don't go downstairs at night. Got it."

It took a while longer, but Yugi was finally able to force himself to sleep. In the morning however, he was displeased to find a couple of older female ghosts staring at him again while he slept. He looked at his watch and it read "7:05am."

"Ugh, it's too early for this. Can you guys not do this? Please?"

However, unlike the old man from the night before, these two women didn't budge. Judging from the way they dressed, they didn't look like they were from around here either, so it was also possible they didn't speak English. Yugi sighed and decided that he should just get up anyway. He walked around the two women, who just stared at him creepily and exited the room.

He crept down the stairs this time, but luckily the foyer was completely empty except for two little girls that were once again playing "Ring around the Rosy." Yugi ignored them and went into the kitchen to get the water he was deprived of last night.

He met nothing on his way, but when he got into the kitchen, he was shocked to see the spirit of a dog, sitting in there, staring at the wall. Yugi hesitated, wondering if him getting water would bother it, but it stayed still. After Yugi got his water, it had disappeared.

"This place is weird," Yugi muttered to himself.

After a few minutes, Yugi looked at his water. Last night, he felt sick to the stomach from whatever was in his drink. Would it be better today? He looked in one of the cabinets and pulled out a small box of cereal. Upon looking at it, that feeling came back full force. It was the feeling one could get as if someone was eating a bowl of eyeballs instead of cocoa puffs, and Yugi lost any appetite he had after that.

"I hope this doesn't last…" he mumbled to himself, putting the cereal away. Before he closed the cabinet door, a small mouse crept out and leapt onto the floor. Yugi watched it scamper away thinking that Tea wouldn't like that.

Yugi wasn't sure what time everyone was going to get up, so he decided to take a walk outside to check on the horses. The outside air was nice and cool, but not too cold that it would be uncomfortable. The horses were right where they left them, and walked up to greet Yugi as he came up to the fence.

"Sorry, we didn't feed you last night, did we?" Yugi felt bad about it, but then he noticed that they were eating grass that was around their barn, so they couldn't be that hungry. So Yugi looked in the barn and found a bale of hay inside. The horses seemed thankful to have it.

After about a half hour of watching the horses eat, Yugi decided to go inside. But as he turned around he saw that the old man that he kept seeing was staring at him. Only this time, the knife that was in his side all those times before, was now in his hand. Yugi tried not to pay any attention to it.

"Look, will you leave me alone?"

The old man just gained a grin on his face, and faster than Yugi registered it, the man charged at him. Yugi tried to jump sideways to avoid the knife flashing in his direction, but a sharp, blinding pain in his shoulder told him that he wasn't fast enough. Yugi backed up towards the barn and looked around, but the old man had disappeared. There was no trace of him. Yugi then looked at his shoulder and gasped. The spectral knife the man was holding was now sticking out of him, just the way the man had stabbed him. It was still see-through, but it still hurt a lot. So Yugi took a shaking hand and pulled out the knife. It was strange when you can touch a ghost knife and then pull it out only to have it disappear, which is what happened. It was even stranger to find that you were stabbed with it, and were now bleeding from it.

"Oh no…" Yugi stared at the knife wound that was leaking blood over his shirt. He didn't know that these ghosts could touch him like that, but now that he knew that they could, it made this place seem more threatening…more real.

Upon looking around, Yugi decided that the man was not coming back, having done what he had been itching to do since they got here. That being said, Yugi took a few minutes of pressing on the wound, and waiting for the pain to subside. When it did not, Yugi quickly went back into the house (careful not to drip blood anywhere, which was hard concerning how much was coming out), grabbed his bottle of water and went upstairs into the bathroom. Luckily, Tea had packed a first aid kit so Yugi was able to clean up and wrap the wound fairly quickly. He knew it wasn't the best job ever, and he may even have to replace the bandages tomorrow, but at least he wasn't dripping blood wherever he went. Yugi decided then and there to try and convince everyone to leave. It wouldn't be hard to convince Yami since he knew what was going on, but everyone else was a different story. He might have to explain how he can see ghosts and that they started attacking to get them out, but for now, Yugi didn't want to show off his wound to anyone.

He took his bloodied jacket, rolled it up into a ball, and carefully walked into his bedroom, making sure not to wake anyone up. Yugi was also thankful that he brought extra clothes, so he changed, and if he didn't show anyone his bandages, no one would know what happened…as long as no one touched it of course, since it hurt to move his arm at all now. Unfortunately, he didn't pack any extra shirts other than the two he had, so if he ruined this one, he's have to walk around with it. He didn't want to worry anyone but at the same time, he needed to leave this place. It was starting to become oppressive and Yugi wasn't sure if he could last three more days here especially if there were ghosts out there who were bent on killing him.

Yugi walked out into the hallway and almost walked into Joey.

"Oh! Joey!"

"Whoops, sorry man," Joey yawned. "How'd ya sleep last night?"

Yugi shrugged, which he wished he hadn't done, because it doubled the pain in his shoulder. He tried to mask it though. "Uh, c-could have been better…"

Joey didn't really notice anything odd however because he was too busy yawning. "Yeah, same here. This place creeps me out, ya know?"

"Yeah," he said, and watched as Joey walked into the bathroom in sort of a sleepy daze. He could hear sounds in Yami's room, and knew that he was getting out of bed also. So Yugi decided to walk downstairs into the kitchen again to find more water and to sit at the table. It wasn't long before Joey came down and started rummaging through the cupboards.

"I wish we brought more food, I'm hungry." he said, bringing out the cereal and pouring himself a bowl.

As Joey ate, Yugi couldn't help but have that sick feeling creep up on him again…like Joey was eating mashed up corpses in his bowl. He tried not to have a reaction to it, or even not pay attention to it, but Joey seemed to have read the look on his face.

"Are you alright Yugi? You don't look so good…"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Yugi said quickly. "I'm just tired."

Joey stared at him for a bit, which made Yugi a little nervous, but he pretended not to notice. Then Joey said, "You know, if there's anything bothering you, you can tell me."

Yugi looked at him quickly, and wondered how Joey could have figured that out just by staring at him…unless he was that obvious.

" _I should probably just tell him_ ," Yugi thought to himself. "… _Go on. Do it_!"

Yugi was just about to explain everything, when Yami came in with Tea and Tristan.

"Did you all get up at the same time?" Joey asked looking at the three of them with a surprised look.

"Well when you can't sleep, you kind of get up whenever your brain _feels_ like getting up…" Tea yawned, and everyone else followed suit in doing the same.

"I hate yawning," Tristan said sitting at the table and grabbing the box of cereal from Joey. "It's so contagious."

Yugi sighed. He wanted to tell everyone what was going on, but suddenly he had lost the will to do it. The food all around the table was starting to make him feel really nauseous.

"So why couldn't _you_ guys sleep?" Joey asked looking at everyone else individually.

"Bad dreams," Yami said.

"Creepy noises," Tristan said nodding.

"Both," Tea said nodding.

Joey stared at them, then shrugged. "Yeah, me too."

Yugi decided it was time to be bold. "Maybe we should leave…"

"What?" Tristan said in surprise. "I know we all haven't gotten a lot of sleep, but I don't think that's any reason to leave. I'm kinda interested in what's going on here. Like, what if we were able to get evidence of all the stuff that's going on, and if we get good enough stuff, we could get rich or something!"

Tea rolled her eyes. "Here we go…"

"I actually like the sound of that. We could be like the Ghostbusters." Joey said. "Except…we just get evidence and things like that. We don't need to capture them or anything."

"Except that some of the stuff here is actually dangerous," Yami said looking impatient. "You could get hurt doing that."

"We'll be careful," Tristan said. "Joey, do you still have voice recorder with you in your back pack?"

"Oh yeah! The one I always used in class." Joey said, getting up from the table and going to get his recorder. Tristan followed him.

"Well at least they're busy," Tea said eating more cereal. Yami shrugged.

Yugi suddenly decided that he didn't want to be inside anymore. With everyone eating and the possibility of Joey and Tristan riling up more ghosts to get evidence, being outside seemed a lot more peaceful.

"I'll be outside," he told Yami and Tea, and then walked out into the living room, then the foyer. Before he went outside, he could hear Joey and Tristan upstairs trying to figure out what they were going to say.

"Don't worry, I've seen this on TV a hundred times," Tristan was saying. "We ask them questions, and give a good amount of time in-between each one, cause it takes them longer to hear it…or something like that."

Yugi sighed and went outside towards the barn again. Thankfully, no sign of the old man who stabbed him remained, and the horses were grazing peacefully. Yugi decided to watch the horses for a while, which is exactly what he did.

His grandfather's mansion would be a really nice place if it was fixed up and didn't house an immeasurable amount of spirits that wanted to hurt you. Was that the reason why he left all those years ago? And if so, why did he send the five of them to the place, knowing it was dangerous?

Yugi thought of many different possibilities, one just as unlikely as the next. He thought about it for so long, that he didn't realize how much time had gone by until Yami walked up to him. At least three hours had gone by since everyone else woke up and he came outside, but that was only by measuring where the sun was in the sky. It could have easily been more.

"Hey," Yami said as he came up. "You've been out here for a while. Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," Yugi said without looking up. "I've just been thinking. So…what have you guys been up to?"

"Oh, just trying to stop Joey and Tristan from going up to the third floor."

Yugi looked at him quickly but Yami was smirking.

"Let's just say I threatened them with no food if they didn't leave that door alone."

Even Yugi had to smile at that. That's one of the biggest threats that you could make to those two, and he was sure that they didn't take it lightly. It was probably one of those situations where it wasn't funny at the time, but afterwards when you think about it, makes you laugh. Yami could be very persuasive if he needed to be.

"I bet that was fun."

"Yeah, you should have seen the looks on their faces. They-…Yugi _what happened?_ "

Yugi looked up at him, and realized he was looking at his shoulder. He didn't even realize, but the blood started to seep through the bandages and on the jacket he was wearing to cover it up. Yugi didn't know what to say at first, but soon found his words.

"Well…remember that old man that I told you about yesterday?"

It took a couple of seconds, but the comprehension dawned on Yami's face and he looked shocked.

"This is more dangerous than I thought…" Yami looked troubled for a second, but then looked at Yugi. "Let me help you bandage that."

Reluctantly, Yugi followed him into the house and then the bathroom where he pulled out the first aid kit. When Yugi pulled off the bandages, he was surprised that the wound hadn't started to heal yet, and was still bleeding a lot. Yami looked troubled by it too. Yugi guessed that Yami didn't think that it was going to be as bad as it was.

"How long ago did this happen?" he asked while bandaging it up.

Yugi had to think about it. "Before you guys got up…after 7 o'clock."

He didn't even think about looking at his watch to tell the time. Yugi looked at it and was shocked to see that it said 3:30PM. He was outside for a really long time…

He suddenly had an urge to tell him about his other eating problem as well, since it was related to the ghosts too, but just as he was about to say how he thought something was wrong with him, the sounds of Joey and Tristan started to reach into the bathroom. Yugi didn't want them to see, so he hastily put away all of the first aid tools, and slipped his jacket back on, despite the fact that there was blood on it.

"What are you doing?" Yami asked him looking confused.

"They don't need to see…" Yugi said quietly and exited the bathroom. By the time Yami came out, Joey and Tristan came out from Joey's room looking excited. When they noticed Yugi and Yami, they came right over. Yugi was sure to hide his bloody sleeve.

"Dude, you guys should have heard the stuff in Joey's room," Tristan said holding up the digital voice recorder. "This has to be some Class A voices we heard in there, and some other weird noises that we never heard before."

"Yeah," Joey said looking uneasy. "I just wish they weren't in _my_ room."

"Don't worry about it," Tristan said slapping Joey on the back. "Hey, let's play this back. You guys wanna hear it? I'll grab Tea too."

Just then, the woman in question screamed downstairs. The four guys rushed downstairs and towards her screams into the kitchen. They stopped dead in their tracks as they saw Tea on top of the table with mice eating a pile of spilled cereal that had fallen to the floor.

"That's it! I know I brought mouse traps for a reason!" Tea said sounding hysterical. "Joey! Get my bag! _This is war_ …"

"Uh, I really don't think this is-"

"Unless you want them to eat all of our _food_ that is."

Joey stood there for a second, watching the mice gobble up the cereal then nodded determinedly. "I'll be right back."

Tristan scared off the rest of the mice, and Yami helped Tea off of the table. As Tristan was sweeping up the mess, Yugi looked over to where the cereal used to be and saw a teenager standing there. He had a mischievous glint to his eyes and walked over to the cupboards. Before Yugi realized what he was about to do, he started opening up the doors to the cupboards one by one. Tea screamed again, and Yami pushed her behind him. Yugi watched in amazement as the kid opened every door, laughed and then exited through one of the cupboards that he opened. Tristan looked around in shock.

"Joey! Come in here quick!" he shouted. He looked at all the doors as if they were the neatest thing on the planet. "They just opened by themselves…"

"Okay, I'm scared now!" Tea squeaked.

"Don't worry, he's gone," Yugi said without thinking. Tristan looked at him questioningly, but then Joey burst in the room carrying Tea's backpack. He took one look around the room and understood. He looked at Tristan.

" _Please_ tell me you caught that."

"What, does it look like I carry a video camera with me all the time?" Tristan said now looking annoyed. "I wish I did but it was still cool. Would have made some good evidence."

"Alright that's enough," Tea said walking up to them. "I bet it's _your_ fault all this is happening!"

"What? _Our_ fault?"

"Yeah! You keep saying, 'Show yourselves!' or 'Talk to us!' or even 'Could you move something so that we know that you're here?' I heard you all morning. Well look, they answered you."

"That's true," Joey said looking around again in awe.

"Well no more of that. Yami said that some of these things were dangerous. What if instead of opening doors it decided to throw knives at us? Or worse?"

"Don't give them more ideas," Yugi said feeling nervous. She was right. He didn't seem to be their only target here…just the _main_ target. Everyone else was still in danger. He was going to suggest leaving again, but then Tea started arguing again saying that it was their fault for upsetting the ghosts.

"Maybe not Tea," Yami said in thought. Tea glared at him.

"What, you're on their side?"

Yami held his hands up in a pacifying gesture. "No, I'm just saying that there could be more to this than that."

Yami shot a sideways glance at Yugi as he said it but no one really noticed. They were too busy watching Tea making sure she was going to blow up again.

"Like what?" she said putting her hands on her hips. Joey and Tristan looked at each other nervously when Yami looked at them.

"Joey," he said. "What did you catch on your voice recorder?"

Joey blinked. "Oh…well, here. I'll play it."

Joey brought out his voice recorder that was no bigger than a mouse. He fiddled with the buttons on it for a minute before hitting the play button. The voices of Joey and Tristan came out from the small speaker in surprising clarity.

 _"Is it on?"_ Tristan said _._

 _"I think so."_ Joey said. The sounds of fingers over the microphone could be heard until they grasped the recorder properly _. "So how do we do this?"_

 _"Ask questions, and we should be able to hear their responses on the recorder when we play it back."_

Yugi could hear a whisper through the recorder as Tristan spoke but it wasn't anything that could be made out. Joey's voice rang out again as if the real Joey were speaking now.

" _Hey, uh…if there are any ghosts here… speak or… something."_

"… _That was lame_." Tristan said after a pause.

 _"Then you do better!"_

As the sounds of the two of them arguing continued, other voices came through the tiny speaker of the voice recorder. They were clear enough that even though Joey and Tristan were arguing, the voices could be heard in clarity.

" _Make them go away…_ " said a voice that sounded like a wheezing old man.

" _I've been…trying._ " said another voice. This one sounded either like a little girl or a small boy. It was hard to tell. " _The Veil makes it difficult_ …"

The audio then became distorted almost like radio interference cut through it. Joey's and Tristan's voices could be heard slightly, but then other voices could be heard on top of it.

" _Stop, you'll wake it up_!" said an urgent voice.

" _Kill…kill them all_!

The audio then cut out and then there was nothing.

Joey and Tristan looked at each other questioningly.

"What was _that_?!" Tristan said wide eyed.

"I don't know." Joey said looking at the recorder in confusion. "You mean it didn't record the rest of our investigation? That stinks…."

"What do you mean? That was scary!" Tea said with a slight shiver. "I'm glad there's no more…"

"But it did give us information…." Yami said looking like he did when he was thinking. "It sounds like they don't want us here for a reason, which means they might try and scare us away. I don't think Tristan and Joey's investigation made it worse at all…"

Tea glared at him again and Yugi started to think that she just wanted someone to blame because it made her feel better about everything that was happening. He decided to jump in so that Tea didn't try and blame Yami too.

"Look Tea," he said. "I think he's right. Maybe-"

"Either way," she said as if Yugi hadn't spoken. "We should probably get this pest situation under control. Joey did you get the mouse traps?"

Joey blinked as if he completely forgot about them, but nodded bringing out a handful of them. Tea then went to work setting them up around the kitchen and ignoring everyone else.

Later in the day, Tea had asked Yugi to go and look for more things to catch mice with that might be in the house while she to scold Joey and Tristan in subtle ways. Subtle in a sarcastic sense since it involved Tea doing things such as opening doors in their faces and saying that the ghosts did it.

So Yugi decided that he would check upstairs, partially to get away from all the anger, and also to see if there was anything in the one closet that was up there. He reached the second floor and went to the third door on the right to the closet. He never actually went and looked inside it before but according to Tea, it existed. Yugi was about open the door when the sounds of sobbing reached his ears. He froze with his hand floating above the doorknob. The sound was coming from the other side of that door. If he opened it now, he already knew that he wouldn't like what he would see. However, against his better judgment, Yugi found himself turning the doorknob and swinging the door open.

Inside was a large walk-in closet, with both sides set aside for hanging clothes. It was too dark to see all the way back but Yugi didn't need to see back there to find the source of the noise. In the middle of the walk-way, crouched a small girl, no older than four. She wore a small pink dress that was spotted with blood. It didn't take even a second for Yugi to find the source of it: the girl had a large gash on her head that seemed to be continuously bleeding so that a spectral puddle was forming underneath her feet. However, it was the source of her grief that was the worst to look at. Placed in front of the weeping child, was a large pile of human corpses. The ghostly pile was large enough to take up the entire walkway and almost as tall as the top of the coat racks. Yugi stood frozen for a couple of seconds as he listened to the child's sobbing and looked at the dead staring eyes of the corpses.

Suddenly, the little girl turned around and glared at him.

"Go away!" she hiccupped.

Yugi blinked, tearing his eyes away from the disturbing pile. "S-sorry…I just…"

"You won't tell them, will you? Your friends? About… _us_?"

The question took Yugi off guard and he could think of no answer because his gaze kept on wandering back to the pile.

"H-how do…." was all he could say. He felt as though he was rooted to the spot in fear. The smell of decay started to fill the air.

"You shouldn't tell them. I know you want to, but you shouldn't." she said, suddenly gaining a creepy smile. "Because if you do…"

A shift in energies caught Yugi's eye and he looked once again to the pile of bodies. Suddenly, instead of a bunch of nameless people, they all turned into the dead bodies of Tea, Tristan and Joey. There were multiples of them that made it so the pile was just as high. Yugi could do nothing except stare at the pile of his friends and wonder if this little girl was serious.

Then, the girl's face shifted and she suddenly became very angry. She stood up, dripping more blood from her pink dress and started to stride towards him.

"Go away!" she yelled, her voice morphing into a hundred different voices talking all at once. "Leave this place!"

Yugi did not need telling a third time. With a sudden burst of renewed energy, he quickly slammed the door and backed to the other side of the hallway, panting heavily. What he saw in that closed was the most frightening thing he's seen yet at this place, and he was sure that it wouldn't be the end of it.

He waited for the little girl to open the door and start yelling at him again, but there was no sign of her, nor did the door move.

Movement out of the corner of his eye caused Yugi to jump but when he looked towards it, he only saw Joey walking up the stairs, no doubt to get away from Tea. He saw Yugi and walked over, and Yugi did his best to look casual.

"Hey, did you find anything up here yet?" Joey asked.

"Um..not yet." Yugi said. "There isn't much up here really…"

Joey then decided that he was going to do a little searching himself it seemed and unfortunately he went for the closet first. He made to open it, but Yugi stepped in his way.

"Wait!" he said trying to come up for a quick idea as to explain his actions. Joey stopped and raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

"Uh…there's-mice in there. I don't want to set them all off and freak Tea out."

It seemed like a good enough explanation for Yugi but Joey continued to stare at him with a raised eyebrow. After a couple of seconds Joey spoke up.

"Alright dude, what's with you? You've been acting weird ever since we came here. What's wrong?"

That was a question that Yugi was not expecting, and for a few seconds, he was at a loss for words. He couldn't just blurt out that he could suddenly see a bunch of spirits that kept threatening him and if he decided to tell anyone of them about it like he wanted to, that they could be killed. Besides, Joey probably wouldn't even believe him even if he did tell him. However, as much as Yugi now wanted to tell everyone about what was happening, he truly didn't want to risk it. It might have just been a little girl, but that little girl frightened him, and he took her threat to heart. Yugi wanted no harm to come to his friends. Therefore, it was at that thought that got Yugi to keep calm and to think up of something good to say.

"Nothing's wrong, but I don't know if I want to hear Tea complain about anything else today, do you?"

Joey looked a little frightened about the thought of giving Tea something else to yell at him about and nodded. "Yeah you're right about that one…but…"

Joey looked at him again as if debating on asking more questions, but he just sighed. "Come on, let's go back downstairs…"

That action confused Yugi, but he complied nonetheless. Anything to get away from that closet…almost anything.  
When they got downstairs they entered the kitchen where Tea was with Yami, putting the food in a place where the mice wouldn't be able to get to it.

"There, that should be good enough, right?" Tea said with satisfaction.

"Let's hope so," Yami said.

"Oh, good." Joey spoke up. "Are we done?"

Tea looked at him, glared, and then said, "What were you doing? Trying to get more EVP's?"

"Wha-no! I was just gonna help Yugi find stuff, that's all! Honestly, I'm done recording, alright? Sheesh." Joey rolled his eyes and sat down at the table in a huff. "And you don't need to take your fear of mice and ghosts out on us."

Yami and Yugi visibly flinched as Tea started arguing with him again, saying how that's not why she's angry and she's just trying to protect everyone. Yami motioned for he and Yugi to leave the room and they did so discretely, into the living room.

"Wow, I don't think Tea's ever been so livid." Yami said. "It's a little strange…"

"Yeah, it is," Yugi said, and he thought of the pile of bodies that were his friends in the closet. What if the house was affecting everyone else as well but in different ways? No sooner than the thought crossed Yugi's mind did Yami speak up again.  
"Yugi, something's happening to all of you and I don't like it."

Yugi looked at him in surprise to find him looking at him with a concerned expression.

"W-what do you mean?"

"I mean Tea's acting angry, Joey's terrified and Tristan's becoming more subdued by the hour." Yami said. "Not only that but you can see these spirits, and I can tell it's taking its toll on you. Maybe we should leave today?"

Yugi didn't say anything at first but then looked down and muttered, "Good luck…"

It turned out that Yami needed more than luck to get everyone together to leave. As soon as he suggested it, Tea complained that she had just got done mouse proofing the kitchen and therefore wasn't ready to leave. Tristan didn't answer and Joey said that they just got there and he wanted to explore some more. However, as he said this, he looked more nervous than ever. Yugi saw what Yami meant about everyone's personality change. Everyone was a little moody, and he hoped that with the next day everything would get better.

That night, Yugi was able to get a little more sleep, but not without the nightmares that everyone else experienced. Yugi dreamed that he was trying to tell everyone else his problem with the ghosts, and how he couldn't eat. But every time he tried, something horrible happened to them. Then if he actually told them, they died horrible gruesome deaths. Yugi woke up suddenly panting, and it took him a couple of minutes to realize that it was only a dream and that everyone else, that he knew of, were still safe and sleeping in their rooms.

Yugi knew that it was very unusual for him to have dreams like that, where everyone dies and there's blood everywhere. He then remembered what happened earlier that day in the closet and the message that the little girl told him: that if he told anyone else of what was going on, his friends would meet the same grim fates that they met in his dream.

It was then that he realized that another figure was at the foot of his bed: It was the little girl from the closet. Blood was still sprinkling from her head onto her dress, which was so saturated with blood that Yugi wondered if it was once white instead of red. She smiled at him, which looked menacing next to the fact that she had a large gash on the side of her head.

Yugi looked at her and sighed. "You win. I won't tell anyone…"


	4. Chapter 4

Yugi went back to sleep but not for long…he woke up again when the sun started to rise at 6:45AM by his watch. Deciding that he wasn't going to go back to sleep, Yugi walked downstairs and back down towards the kitchen. He was surprised when he opened the door to find Joey sitting at the table, drinking what looked like orange juice, but to Yugi he might as well have been drinking blood. He resisted the urge to gag.

"Oh, hey Yugi," he said tiredly. "What are you doing up so early?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Yugi said casually and sat next to him. Usually Joey had been known to sleep in until 11 o'clock in the morning, so seeing him awake before 7 was indeed unusual. Joey just sighed.

"Ever since me and Tristan investigated my room yesterday, there have been some weird sounds coming from a certain corner. It's been keeping me awake."

"What kind of sounds?"

"I dunno, they sound like growls. That, and shuffling sounds. Kind of like there's someone walking around in my room, but when I look, there's nothing there. It's kinda creepy if you ask me." Joey shivered. Yugi tried to offer some support.

"Don't worry Joey, I'm sure it's just-"

"Yugi, what happened to your arm?!" Joey said so sharply that it made Yugi jump.

"W-what?" Yugi looked down at his shoulder, and realized that the blood from his wound had soaked through the bandages, and leaked out onto his shirt and traveled all the way down his arm. He must have been so sleepy, that he didn't even notice. He wished he did though. It looked like someone tried to cut his arm off.

Yugi didn't even answer but rolled up his sleeve, took off the bandages, and started washing is arm off in the sink with another bottle of water. He refused to use the water that came out of the sink due to the fact that it was sitting in the pipes for a while.

"Here, I'll get the bandages," Joey said and rushed out the door to get them.

Yugi cursed himself for being so negligent as he poured more water over the wound which continued to bleed. He then looked at how the wound was, and strangely, it didn't look too much different, except that the skin was getting red in that area. Yugi wondered if spectral wounds were different to normal ones, because this one wasn't healing as fast as it should have. Not only that, but instead of the pain going away, it started to increase every day since he got it. Then there's an infection to consider….

Joey returned with the first aid kit in tow, and started to help Yugi wrap it up again.

"So what happened Yugi? You never mentioned…" Joey said looking uncertainly from him to what he was doing.

Yugi didn't say anything at first. Yesterday, he would have told Joey straight out on how he got it…the whole story. Now after what happened with the little girl, and after he had that dream where everyone died because he tried to tell them, he was afraid to. He felt like he and his friends were strapped to time bombs. If he told them anything, they would probably die. If he waited too long to do anything about it, _he_ would probably die. He's not sure what of yet, but right now there were a lot of possibilities.

"I-I tripped and fell on a nail that was near the barn," he lied, hoping Joey would take it. Unfortunately for Yugi, he didn't.

"You know Yugi," he said finishing the wrap job and sitting at the table, gesturing for Yugi to do the same. "You're a terrible liar."

Yugi winced and sat down, avoiding his gaze.

Joey sat there staring at him, patiently waiting for an answer. Yugi felt like he was stuck in a corner. Then he had an idea, but wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do and if he did it, would he be risking Joey's life?

But Yugi knew Joey enough that he wouldn't back down, and so he had no choice but to give in... sort of.

"I can't tell you…I'm sorry."

Joey looked surprised. "Why not?"

"Because…I'm afraid that if I told you…that we might not leave here alive…" Yugi looked at Joey to see his reaction, and it was just as he thought it would be.

"W-what?!" Joey said. "Why would you think _that_?"

But Yugi already felt that he went too far on what he said, so he just added, "Just don't go on the third floor." And with that, he walked out leaving a confused looking Joey behind.

Ignoring Joey trying to call him back, Yugi walked out in the foyer feeling angry with himself. He didn't like pushing any of his friends away like that, but he was forced to, and it made him feel horrible. Wanting to clear his head, Yugi walked outside to get some fresh air. The sun was starting to rise, but some storm clouds were coming in from the West, and they didn't look friendly. Yugi sighed and went over to the barn to feed the horses. He stood out there for another hour, watching two ghosts argue just out of earshot, when Yami came up to him yet again.

"You like this spot, don't you?" he said walking up next to him.

Yugi thought about it, and he guessed it was true. Coming out and watching the sun rise was always calming, not to mention it was pretty too.

"Yeah, it's nice."

Yami stood out with him for a couple of minutes before breaking the silence. "Joey told me what happened this morning."

"Oh yeah…"

"Why couldn't you tell him?"

Yugi looked up at Yami and thought about his dream, and the pile of corpses. When he thought of either of those two things, the more he realized that it was always Joey, Tristan or Tea. He wasn't sure why, but now that he thought of it, Yami never actually appeared in that dream or in the pile of corpses. It was a long shot but it could be possible that the ghosts were afraid of Yami for some reason. So Yugi figured it would be okay to tell him about the dream he had. He deliberately left out what he saw in the closet though. It still scared him to think about it.

When Yugi was done recounting the dream, Yami looked troubled.

"There must be a good reason as to why these ghosts don't want you to tell anyone…I wouldn't think that they were doing just-"

"Just to mess with me? They might be…" Yugi couldn't help but say it but it felt true. He remembered the look on the faces of each and every ghost he saw, and not one seemed at all nice, not to mention that each one looked delighted by the fact that they were scaring him.

Yami sighed. "Look, let's go inside and talk. It looks like it's going to rain soon."

Yugi looked up, and realized that the clouds got a lot closer since when he last looked at them. It was definitely going to storm soon. "Okay…"

They then went inside and Yami led him back into the empty kitchen.

"Where did Joey go?" Yugi asked.

"I think he said that he was going to go back to sleep. He said he was up for a while…" Yami said starting to go through the cupboards for some breakfast.

Yugi sat down, suddenly feeling exhausted, like the consequence of not eating for two days was suddenly creeping up on him. Not only that, but he was starting to feel feverish, which wasn't the best combination. Yami must have noticed because he quickly walked up to him.

"Yugi? What's wrong?"

"…I just don't feel good," he said quietly. Yami put a hand up on his forehead, which surprised Yugi.

"Yugi, you're burning up!" Yami said. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I didn't start feeling this bad until now," Yugi said.

"I think there's medicine in the first aid kit, so how about you eat something and then take that?"

Yami gave him a look like he noticed, so Yugi couldn't help but look at him.

"I can't…"

"Why?"

Yugi hesitated, hoping that he wasn't going to regret telling Yami this also, and then told him. When he was done, Yami looked shocked.

"You haven't eaten since we got here?"

"…No…"

"Yugi why didn't you say anything?" Yami had a mixture of emotions on his face, but Yugi recognized frustration, and worry in the mix.

"Because I was scared to, that's why!" Yugi couldn't help but say it, especially because that's how he felt since they got here. "I don't want to find anyone dead. I told you this."

"But you're telling me, so why-"

"Because you weren't in the dream," Yugi said quietly. "You didn't get killed."

To Yugi, it looked like Yami didn't know what to say to that at first. Was it because he found out before they warned Yugi? Or was it because the ghosts were afraid of him? Yugi wasn't sure, but he kind of hoped it was the last one. If it was, then there might be a chance of protecting everyone…and he might know how to do it.

"Alright, but please Yugi, just try and eat something."

"I can't." Yugi cringed.

"Yugi, you can't starve yourself. Your sick enough as it is!"

As he said that, Yugi got a glimpse of his reflection in the water bottle that was sitting on the table. He could tell that he looked very pale, which seemed amplified by the dark circles under his eyes. Not only that but his cheeks were starting to hollow out which was from, what Yugi thought, was from not eating, although that seemed weird for just a couple of days…No wonder Yami was so worried. Yugi was starting to look like the ghosts that he claims to have seen.

"Yami," Yugi said a little calmer. "I've already tried believe me. Every time I try and eat something I see- ahh, _him_!"

Yami looked where Yugi pointed but obviously didn't see anything. "Who?"

Yugi saw out in the window looking in on them, the old man that had stabbed him before, smirking at him as if he came to finish the job. Yugi was pretty sure that the last of the color in his face drained at that point.

"It's that man with the knife!"

At that, Yami growled and the puzzle glowed. "Where is he? Outside?"

"Yeah, but he's looking- _hey_!"

Yugi cut himself off as Yami went straight for the back door, and stood staring at where the man was. Yugi followed him but stayed near the door. The Millennium Puzzle was pulsating with energy.

"Back away you foul demon!" Yami yelled at it, and he released an energy blast throughout his outstretched hand. Yugi watched in fascination as the attack collided with the ghost. The old man let out a horrified screech and disappeared in a shower of particles. A second passed before Yami said, "Phew, I think I got him."

"What was _that_?!" Yugi looked at Yami with awe.

"That was the puzzle." Yami smiled knowing that by the look on Yugi's face that he destroyed the ghost once and for all. "After you urged me to try using the Puzzle for different things, I thought about what it could be used for and came to this conclusion. I'm glad to see that it works."

"I'll say. I don't think there's anything left!"

The two of them went back into the kitchen discussing what else the Puzzle could do, when Joey came back in the room looking distressed.

"Joey?" Yami asked looking concerned. "What's wrong?"

"My room! It's seriously haunted and I can't get any sleep in it!" Yugi and Yami looked at each other then back at Joey.

"Don't worry Joey, we just found out a solution." Yami said. "Just show us where it is."

Ignoring the puzzled look they were getting from Joey every so often, they had him lead them up to his room. As they climbed the stairs, Yugi tried not to look at Yami who he knew wasn't done pursuing the earlier topic of not eating. In a way, Yugi was hopeful that he would forget about it since there wasn't much that could be done about it.

Joey opened the door and pointed to the corner next to his bed. "Over there, is where I keep hearing stuff."

As soon as Yugi walked in the room, he could tell that something was off. Yami must have sensed it too, because he said, "Joey how can you sleep in here?!"

When Yugi looked over to the corner that Joey pointed out, he gasped in horror. In the corner next to his bed, was a black mass of something furry. It wasn't like any of the other spirits that roamed here. This was something inhuman. It was black, furry and had two little horns sticking out of the top of its head. He couldn't see any legs or feet, as they were probably underneath the mass of hair, so it looked like a large black, fuzzy ball. As if it sensed his gaze, a pair of red eyes poked out from underneath the tangled mess pile. Yugi immediately froze as the glare pierced his soul. The eyes were so dark, so sinister, and full of death that Yugi wanted to pull away so badly, yet he couldn't. He was locked in the intense stare of the creature that seemed to suck life. It was a gaze similar to the one when they were riding their horses up here, when he first started seeing spirits, only this one was aimed to kill…

He was only vaguely aware of Yami saying, "Do you see what's over there, Yugi?" However, he ignored it and focused on trying to look away. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not rip his gaze from the beast. Finally, Yugi felt someone turn him away from the mass, and when he could not see the monster any longer he finally snapped out of it.

"Wait what?" Yugi looked to find Joey was the one who pulled him away. He meant to look to see what Yami was doing, but Joey turned him around again.

"Don't," was all he said. Joey was seemed to be looking at him strangely. Yugi, trying to avoid Joey's gaze, looked down and could hear Yami shooting at what he knew was the creature. All the while, Yugi was panting, trying to regain his composure. It felt like all his energy was being sucked out. _What had just happened_?

Before Yugi knew it, Yami had finished the job and had walked over.

"What did you do?" Joey asked when he approached.

"Obliterate it using the puzzle." Yami said nonchalantly as if it happened every day. He then went up to Yugi. "Hey, Yugi, are you alright?"

Yugi looked up and noticed that they were both staring at him with concerned looks. "Yeah, but…what _was_ that?"

"I was hoping you could tell us that." Yami looked at him closely as if afraid he might go into a trance again. "All I know is that it was powerful. It took me a couple of times to hit it before it disappeared."

"It wasn't human," Yugi said. It was an all of a sudden feeling that he got as he said it. He suddenly started to feel dizzy and along with that, came the feeling of him being suddenly lifted off the ground and a sense of detachment. He stood there confused for a second after the feeling passed, then looked down and received a shock:

He was looking at himself.

"W-what?!" Yugi said. He looked at his hands and they were transparent. What just happened? Yugi looked back at his real self, and realized that his body was lying on the floor, and he looked unconscious. Yami and Joey were freaking out, trying to get him up. "Oh no…did I die or something?"

"You're not dead," said a voice from behind him, and Yugi whirled around to see who it was.

Who stood…no, floated before him, was what seemed like a female ghost. She looked like she was in her twenties with round glasses and brown hair that was pulled tightly in a bun. Unlike the other spirits that roamed the property here, this ghost alone seemed to be the only one he met so far that didn't want to kill him. In fact, she seemed relieved to see him, but Yugi still had so many questions he wanted them answered before she said what she came to say.

"What do you mean? What happened then?"

"What you met in this room was no ordinary spirit. It is a form of demon that you will only find in these parts." the girl sighed. "They have a special ability to rip souls from their vessels and if they have their way with you, they will tear your soul to shreds and devour you."

Yugi gulped. "That sounds…painful. So what you're saying…what I just felt from it when I couldn't move…that was their ability?"

"Yes. They paralyze the victim with their stare, and if given the chance they rip you out. The effect was delayed, but it succeeded in casting your soul away from your body. Luckily for you, it didn't have the chance to rip you apart."

"But I can get back into my body, right?" Yugi said nervously. He looked back at Yami and Joey and suddenly realized that they were carrying his body downstairs. He made to follow them but the girl held him back.

"Please don't go. You can go back into your body once your body has had time to recover from the shock. But please, don't go anywhere until I've had a chance to speak with you…"

Yugi looked at her in surprise. "But I can see you guys, so why can't it wait until I reenter my body?"

If ghosts could cry, this woman would have done so right then. Her face scrunched up as if she was in pain and she let out a mournful moan, that Yugi was sure could be heard throughout the house. Yugi backed up from her, but it was then that she regained her composure.

"The other day," she said not looking at Yugi. "I tried contacting you, but the other people here…they didn't want that. When I persisted, they…they tore me apart. What you are looking at now is merely a shadow of my former self, and I can only be seen by anyone if they're in the state you're in now: When their soul is outside of their body. Even someone like you, who can see spirits won't be able to sense me when you're in your body. That's how weakened I've become…"

Upon looking at her, Yugi realized how true it was. Her very form shimmered like a bad hologram projector. She seemed to fade in and out so fast that he had to pay attention to it to even notice…but it was there. Her voice echoed more than the other ghosts around as if nothing more than a distant memory. Yugi suddenly became sorry for this girl. She was turned on by everyone to something that couldn't communicate with anything. That had to be a very mediocre existence.

"I'm sorry…is there anything I can do to help?"

The girl shook her head. "No, but that's not the reason I wanted to seek you out.

"The main reason I came to look for you is to warn you. There is an evil that lurks here, and once it is awakened, all is lost! All of you…especially you…your presence here causes it to stir. You must leave!"

"You mean what's up on the third floor?" Yugi pointed to the ceiling above them. "Why? What will happen if it wakes up?"

"Destruction…ruin…famine…" she said, then gasped as if she remembered something important. "Listen, there is a path that you passed on your way here. It's dark, you can't miss it. There's another evil spirit there, just as powerful as the one sleeping above us, only it hasn't been disturbed. If the one that's here wakes up, it will try and find the other one in that path, to join forces. You don't want them to do that…"

"Wait…what?"

"You must leave soon, or this spirit will awaken tomorrow!" the girl looked frightfully at the ceiling as if it could awaken at any moment. "It has almost already been awoken once, so it won't take long now!"

"I would love to leave now if I could, but I wanted to find out what's been happening to me first," Yugi said. He thought about it since he came here, and knew that was part of the reason why he hadn't tried hard enough to leave. He knew he wanted to do it, but a part of him wanted to find out the truth on his new abilities and why the spirits wanted him dead.

It was then that something else caught Yugi's attention: he felt just as sick while out of his body as he did inside it, which didn't make a whole lot of sense to him, seeing as how he thought it would be the opposite. The only thing that felt different was that he didn't feel hungry anymore, which _did_ make sense to Yugi since you can't eat in spirit form.

As if the girl read his mind, she said, "That's right, you've had a horrible curse placed upon you, have you not?"

"A…curse?"

The girl looked down at her own transparent hands and seemed to contemplate something.

"Yes, it's the only way. I see now." she said and looked up at Yugi, who felt very confused.

"W-what now?"

"I'm going to aid you in getting rid of the curse. But if I do this, you must promise me that you will leave here and never come back. The fate of the world depends on it."

"Wait, _what_ curse?"

"Just answer me. Do you promise?" she looked at him with a determined expression on her face, that Yugi couldn't say no to. Plus, it's not like he would want to come back here anyway, what with all the happy memories.

"I promise."

"Good. Now, since I'm like this, the curse will take a couple of hours to disappear completely. But when it does, you will notice the difference."

"…Okay…" Yugi was still confused, but answered her anyway.

"Also, this will take up the rest of the energy I have left, so after this, you will no longer see me, whether you're in your body or not. I will pass on."

"W-wait, then I can't do this."

The girl suddenly looked stern again. "Passing on is better than living in a world where no one can hear or speak to you. You feel pointless and unwanted. My form is fading as we speak. Believe me, I want this to happen. Alright?"

Yugi looked at her and realized she was sincere. She wasn't only doing this to help him, but to also help herself.

"Alright…thank you for helping me."

The girl smiled, and Yugi thought that if she were alive, they would have made good friends. In a way, she reminded him of Tea.

"Now hold still," she said, and placed an ice cold hand on his forehead. "This is going to feel a little odd…"

Suddenly, she started to glow in an eerie blue light, that soon spread to Yugi himself. It was a strange feeling of being covered in ice, but it was light. They held that position for a minute before the girl took her hand away. Yugi noticed as he looked at himself, that he retained the blue aura that once covered them both. He looked up at her questioningly.

"It will only start to take effect when you reenter your body…" she said as she started to fade away. "So, don't stay out for too long…and remember what…I said…"

Before Yugi could say anything, she disappeared into thin air, and the room was quiet once more.


	5. Chapter 5

Yugi stared at the spot where the girl disappeared for a full minute before deciding that she really wasn't coming back. It was saddening that the only spirit in the house willing to help him ended up passing on all too soon. Yugi sighed as he headed for the door.

"Thank you for helping me…" he whispered.

He was about to head downstairs to his body when he realized something. He was right next to the door to the third floor. For the first time since they came here, Yugi had a sudden urge to see what was up there. If it was enough to worry Yami, then it had to be something really strong…

Curiosity overwhelmed him and he willed himself to float upwards through the ceiling. When he got up to the third floor, he only peeked his head through the floor, but that was enough. As soon as he entered, there was a stifling sense of power that overwhelmed his senses. Yugi shivered and looked around the room. Parts of the roof were caved in, revealing patches of sunlight, but the rest was shrouded in darkness. It looked like a typical attic, but it wasn't full of junk. Yugi looked around the room some more until a movement in one corner caught his eye. When he looked to see where it had come from, he saw what made him want to run.

The strange demonic spirit that was in Joey's room wasn't the only one in existence. There, in the corner were about ten of them, fast asleep, as if they didn't have a care in the world. Yugi was glad that they were asleep, seeing as their gaze could paralyze any who looked upon them.

Then Yugi noticed, behind the group of black demonic fuzz balls, was something larger. It had slow steady breathing, yet Yugi knew that it was close to waking. It shifted every couple of seconds as if trying to get comfortable, yet even with that movement, Yugi still couldn't make out it's form. However, he knew that this was the evil spirit Yami warned him not to go looking for. It just radiated an evil aura.

Thinking about the promise that he made to Yami on how he would never come here, Yugi immediately felt ashamed and made to leave the room. However, another quake shook the attic. Yugi looked over to the giant mass and saw it moving around more than it probably should be doing. Immediately Yugi knew that his presence was causing it to wake up. If they didn't leave soon, there would be trouble.

That being said, he made up his mind. Yugi walked (or floated, he really couldn't tell what he was doing…) over to the hallway and went down the stairs. The foyer was empty, so he fazed through the wall (which was really weird) into the living room, which is where he found Yami and Joey talking, while his body was laying on the couch. Yugi couldn't help but listen in on their conversation.

"We need to leave," Yami said not looking up. Joey didn't say anything but allowed Yami to continue. "I'm sorry Joey, but there's been more going on here that you weren't told about…and neither were Tea and Tristan…"

"I thought so," Joey growled. Yugi came a little closer, and both of them looked worried. Joey actually looked really angry and was trying hard not to break something. Yugi couldn't think of what would have made him so angry. "The way you and Yugi were acting the past couple of days…"

"Believe me, we would have said something from the very beginning but…" Yami hesitated for a second then decided to go on. "I guess it all started out when Yugi said he could suddenly see the spirits here…as solidly as you or me."

Joey looked up in surprise, and Yugi wanted to tell Yami to stop what he was doing now, but he couldn't. Yami wasn't paying attention to his surroundings at the moment.

"And he didn't care to mention this because…?"

Yami sighed. "Well at first, I think he was afraid to. But soon, the spirits here started to torment him, and gave him warnings that if he told anyone, we would all be killed."

"They can do that?" Joey gained all of his anger back and clenched his fists like he wanted to punch something. "I guess they can…"

Yugi followed Joey's gaze and realized that Joey was looking at his arm (his body's arm). Yugi realized that Joey was starting to catch on, how he got the wound in the first place.

"I hate bullies…Stupid ghosts…I'll knock them upside their heads!"

"Listen Joey, something here is being kept a secret from all of us," Yami said noticing Joey's anger. "These spirits don't want us here for a _reason_ , so I think that it's best that we leave as soon as possible…not to mention…Yugi needs to see a doctor."

Joey seemed to swallow his anger, and sighed. "Yeah, you're right. I'll go wake up Tea and Tristan. You stay here and watch Yugi."

Yami nodded, and sat at the end of the couch looking stressed.

Yugi immediately started to feel responsible for everything that happened over the past couple of days. He felt bad that he was causing everyone grief, and (while nobody here would admit it but him) he felt kind of a burden. Nobody would really realize that these spirits were here if he hadn't said anything, so Yugi was determined to make things right. He was going to get everyone together, and leave this horrible place, no matter how sick he felt.

Yugi decided now is was the best time to get back into his body, so he braced himself and dove head first into it. He had the sensation of being sucked down a long, dark tunnel, and then suddenly he could open his eyes.

It had worked, and he was back in his body. Unfortunately, that meant that his hunger, and the pain in his arm were also back twofold, not to mention as he laid there, he kept having a dizzying feeling like he was going to fall out of his body again at any moment, which wasn't comforting.

Yugi had had a lot of out-of-body experiences back when he and Yami shared the same body before, but this seemed a little different. His soul was paralyzed then ripped out, and it seemed that whatever was holding his soul and body together before was weaker than it used to be. He felt like he could almost leave his body again if he wanted to. It wasn't exactly the best feeling in the world…

Yami suddenly realized that Yugi was awake and came over to him.

"Yugi! Are you alright?"

Yami helped Yugi sit up, which Yugi wished he hadn't done so quickly, because he felt even dizzier afterwards. He shut his eyes tightly to try and ward it off.

"Yeah…just…a little dizzy," Yugi said so that Yami didn't think he passed out again. He sat like that for another minute before the dizzy feeling started to get weaker, yet Yugi still had that feeling that he could exit his body again at any time.

When Yugi finally opened his eyes, he saw that Yami was still looking at him with a concerned expression on his face.

"Sorry about that," Yugi said. He could feel himself rocking slightly as if he was on a boat at sea. "I'm better now."

"That thing must have done a number on you," Yami said. "Do you remember what happened?"

"Yeah…that demon thing…they rip out souls, and it tried to do it to me. It almost got away with it…well according to _her_ anyway."

Yami's expression went from concerned, to confused to worried within a span of ten seconds, and Yugi realized what he was saying really didn't make much sense. So he sat up straighter on the couch, hoping that it would clear his head a little bit.

So Yugi told Yami about what happened (leaving out the part where he went on the third floor), and by the time he was finished, Yugi felt a bit less dizzy. At least now he figured he could stand without falling over.

"That settles it." Yami said sternly. "We're leaving _now_."

Yugi was about to agree with him, when the sound of Tea screaming pierced the air. Now, there's a difference between Tea screaming at a mouse, and Tea screaming because something was wrong. Unfortunately, this so happened to be the wrong one. Yami immediately stood up and ran out into the foyer motioning for Yugi to stay where he was. Yugi followed him anyway however it was as quickly as he could without making himself feel worse.

Yami motioned again for Yugi to stay at the bottom of the stairs, and then he ran up them as quickly as he could. Yugi stopped at the foot of the stairs and waited for a sign of what happened.

"I hope everything's okay…" he said to himself. After a few minutes, there were footsteps, and the sight of Yami and Tristan carrying a lifeless Joey came around the corner, with Tea bringing up the rear looking tearful.

"What happened?!" Yugi said fearfully as they brought Joey down. As they passed him, Yugi noticed a bloody gash on the side of his head.

As Yami and Tristan were passing him to put Joey on the couch in the living room, Tea came up beside him with tears in her eyes.

"Tristan and I were getting up and were about to come downstairs. Joey came up and it looked like he wanted to tell us something, but before he could…" she wiped a tear away, sighed and continued. "The…the lamp picked itself up and hit him on the side of the head… _really_ hard."

Yugi's eyes widened as a random piece of memory surfaced in his brain…back when he was listening to Joey and Yami's conversation not five minutes ago. Joey had said, " _I hate bullies…Stupid ghosts… I'll knock them upside their heads_!"

These ghosts really seemed to know what they were doing…and it scared him.

Yugi and Tea followed them into the living room as they lowered Joey onto one of the couches. Tea already had the first aid kit in hand, and was bringing out the gauze and bandages.

"I could have sworn that we had more gauze than this when we came…" Tea said as she went through it. Yugi didn't look at her and decided to instead to focus on Joey.

"Will he be okay?" he asked.

"I think so," Tristan said examining the wound. He looked as shaken up as Tea was. "He's going to have a monster of a headache when he wakes up though."

"I never thought that these ghosts would get so violent…" Tea said as she wrapped up Joey's head. "What have we ever done to them?"

"I think they just want us gone…" Yami said. "And that's what I think we should do…but…"

Yugi looked at him, and knew that Yami was thinking the same thing he was. Their plans on leaving immediately were marred by the fact that Joey was now unconscious, and Yugi knew that neither of them wanted to stay any longer than need be.

"But how?" Tea said. "I want to leave, but we can't take Joey with us like this!"

There was a small silence before Yami spoke up.

"I'll stay here with Joey, and you three can go on ahead to the Ranger's station. Once Joey wakes up, we'll meet you there and head home together."

"We can't leave you two behind by yourselves!" Tea said indignantly. "This place is getting dangerous. It's better that we stick together! Right Tristan?"

Tristan didn't say anything and when all eyes went to him, he looked sheepish.

"Don't get me wrong Tea, I think you're right. But at the same time…I think we _should_ leave."

"What?!"  
"Well look what happened to Joey! That could be us next, and then _nobody_ will be able to leave. I don't want that to happen!" Tristan said. When Tea could find no retort to that, Tristan looked at Yugi. "Don't you agree?"

"I agree that you two should go, but I'm staying." Yugi said. He had thought about it while they were talking, and while he felt bad for breaking the promise of the woman spirit who helped him, he found that it couldn't be helped. There was no way he was leaving anyone behind.

"What? Why?"

"Yugi," Yami said looking at him carefully. "If any of us needed to be out of here the most, it would be you."

"I can see them," Yugi said sternly. "So I can help keep a lookout."

"But-"

"I am _not_ leaving you two."

Yami looked at loss for words, like he was torn between decisions. The silence wasn't broken until Tristan spoke up.

"Um…did we miss something.?"

Yugi sighed and figured that since they were going to leave, now would be the best time to tell them.

"I can see the ghosts…" he said in a forced calm that he wouldn't have achieved two days ago. "They're everywhere. Most of them, are not nice, as Joey found out the hard way. They didn't want me to tell anyone that, and I still don't know why. But now that you two know, you're in danger, so you _have_ to leave. Besides, that bad spirit up on the third floor is going to wake up soon, and the less people in this house the better."

Tea's and Tristan's eyes were wide as saucers for a few seconds, and Yugi knew it was a lot of information to take in at once.

"I think that's a pretty convincing argument." Tristan said looking at Tea, who looked to the verge of tears again. "What do you think?"

Tea didn't say anything at first, her eyes retaining a glazed look, but then spoke in a low voice.

"Fine. I'm trusting you guys with this…" Tea looked up at them and Yugi noticed that even though she looked teary, her voice was low and calm. "We'll leave and go to the Ranger's station. I have a lot of questions so just promise me, that I'll see you three again…soon."

Yugi looked at Yami for just a second, but knew that they both were thinking the same thing, yet again. That was a hard promise to keep.

"I promise." Yugi said. Yami said the same thing and Tea looked pacified.

"Alright Tristan, let's get our stuff and go."

It only took them a couple of minutes to get their belongings, but when they were done they were ready completely.

As the two of them stood by the door ready to say goodbye, Tea held out a small backpack for Yami to take. He looked at it questioningly.

"It's supplies. I managed to fit a bunch of stuff in it for emergencies. You guys will need it more than us."

Yami reluctantly took the bag, and sooner than Yugi would have liked, the two of them were out the door, on their horse and disappearing down the path. However, once they were gone, Yugi sighed in relief. At least they were safe, so now all they had to worry about was getting Joey up soon so that the three of them could follow.

Silence followed as Yami checked on Joey for signs of him waking. Yugi still couldn't believe that it happened, and hoped Joey would wake up soon. It seemed so long ago that his Grandpa came up to him last week and asked him to check this place out. He probably didn't even know that there was something wrong with this house, and now, it's coming to haunt them all…literally.

Suddenly, a wave of dizziness overcame Yugi again and he had to sit on the other couch. He had almost forgotten his own problems when he was worrying about Tea, Tristan and Joey, but now that some of it had passed, his adrenaline had gone and he felt as bad as he did earlier. He hid his head in his hands to wait out the dizziness, when he heard Yami's voice.

"Yugi?" he said.

Yugi didn't answer right away because he was afraid his voice would come out sounding how he felt. But he was surprised when he felt hands on his shoulders pushing him down on the couch. Yami had a stern yet worried look on his face when Yugi looked at him.

"W-what?"

"You need to rest," he said making sure Yugi wasn't going to try and get up from the couch.

Yugi didn't argue, but wasn't sure if he could really relax knowing that Joey was hurt and that the evil spirit in the attic was close to awakening. Besides, he just brought up in their argument that he was going to help and be a lookout. How could he do that if he was sleeping?

"I can't…not really."

Yami looked like he understood, but said, "You're unwell Yugi. We can't get you to a doctor yet so just try and rest for a little bit, alright?"

Yugi sighed, and remembered his thoughts from earlier. "I'm sorry about all this…it's all my fault."

Yami looked at him, surprised. "What? That's absurd, none of this is your fault."

When Yugi remained unconvinced, Yami continued. "The only ones at fault here, are the spirits on this property. This, is all of their faults. Not yours."

Yugi sat up on the couch careful not to ignite another dizzy spell. "Be careful what you say, or they might come after _you_ next."

"I doubt it," Yami said in a slight smugness that Yugi's never seen on him before. "Ever since I destroyed that one spirit, I'm pretty sure that they've been avoiding me. So as long as they do that, I think we should be fine."

"Unless the big one wakes up."

Any confidence in his own abilities that Yami possessed drained from his face at that, and he regained the concerned look on his face.

"Yes, there _is_ that…"

Yugi looked over at Joey, who had not moved since the incident. He hoped that Joey would wake up soon…

"Too bad we don't have any good smelling food to cook." Yugi said. "That always gets Joey going…"

Yami suddenly looked like he had stumbled on a brilliant idea.

"That might work…" he said and went into the backpack that Tea had given him. He searched around in it for a minute before pulling something out. "Ah-ha! Tea, you're a genius."

Yugi looked at him confused until Yami showed him what he pulled out. It was a packet of Ramen.

"Uh…how are you going to cook that?" Yugi asked. They had no power, limited water, they couldn't make a fire and had nothing to cook it in. Not to mention that Ramen didn't really have that strong of an odor to begin with anyway.

"I'll find a way." Yami said. He looked determined, as if he was sure that his plan was going to work. He then looked over at Yugi worriedly. "Would you be able to keep an eye on Joey while I make this?"

Yugi blinked confusedly at Yami but nodded all the same. "Yeah, I can."

Yami looked reluctant to leave the two of them alone. "Alright. Call me if you see anything."

"Okay…"

Yami walked out of the room and into the kitchen to make the soup.

Yugi sat there for a couple of minutes before giving in to fatigue and resting on the couch. Strangely there were no spirits in the room at the moment, and he wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. All he knew, however, was that he was glad for the silence for once.

He felt himself doze off, and figured a couple of minutes of sleep couldn't hurt. As he started to fall asleep, he felt that sensation as if he was rising. He opened his eyes, startled, and found himself floating above his own body again.

"Ack!" Yugi looked at his transparent body in surprise. "Is this going to happen every time I fall asleep?!"

Feeling a little frustrated, Yugi dove back into his body again. He had that familiar dizzying sensation of being spun in a circle too many times, and opened his physical eyes. He sat up and shook his head.

"That can't be good…" Yugi mumbled to himself. He would have to talk to Yami about that when he got the chance. That thing in Joey's room messed him up more than it seemed.

So Yugi sat there for another fifteen minutes, determined not to fall asleep and keep an eye on Joey, who seemed to not have moved a muscle yet.

" _I wonder what's taking him so long_ …" Yugi thought but no sooner did the thought struck his mind when Yami came through the doorway carrying a pot which was steaming, and a few Styrofoam cups with spoons. The smell of the Ramen started to waft its way over as soon as he came in the room.

"I hope this is enough…" he said, setting the cups on one of the arms of the couches. Yugi looked at him with a confused look.

"Where did you get all of these supplies, and how did you _cook_ that?"

"Well, the supplies were things that Tea left behind and…how I cooked it isn't important…just know that it's hot."

Yugi raised an eyebrow and watched Yami pour Ramen into the cups. It wasn't like Yami to keep something like that a secret, but then Yugi thought, he was no better…so he let it go.

"Now _please_ Yugi," Yami said handing him a cup. "Please just try and eat some of it?"

Yugi hesitated on taking it, because he knew that if he looked at the food it would probably look like worms in vomit or something. However, seeing the pleading look on Yami's face made him reluctantly grab it. He looked inside, and something seemed different…they didn't look like guts or worms or anything horrible like that. It looked like Ramen…really _good_ Ramen. His stomach seemed to roar, and he suddenly realized that he could now eat…somehow he could eat!

He thought back to the spirit that he met who said that she had taken away a curse. Was this it? Was he not doomed to eventually starve to death? There was only one way to find out…he took a hesitant bite and was immensely relieved that he didn't feel sick in the slightest. Yugi thought back to the girl spirit who helped him and wished he could have known her name. She helped him so much…

The sound of groaning drew Yugi from his thoughts, and distracted Yami from pouring the ramen so that he almost spilled some.

Joey was waking up and he put a hand up to his injured temple.

"Ugh…man," he groaned and looked around confused. "I feel like I was hit by a truck…"

Yami quickly walked over to him. "Joey! How are you feeling?"

"… _Like I was hit by a truck_ …" he said more forcefully. "What happened?"

"You were actually hit by a lamp…"

Joey thought about it for a second, while feeling the bandages going around his head, and sat up gingerly. "Okay, I don't want to know what being hit by a truck _actually_ feels like…"

"Maybe you'll feel better after you have this," Yami said handing him a cup of Ramen. Christmas couldn't have come earlier for Joey.

"Oh man! Where did you get this? You read my mind. Foooooood." Joey sniffed it like he hadn't smelled food in forever and started to gobble it down.

"Huh, it worked," Yugi laughed. Yami nodded in amusement. Joey looked confused with noodles hanging out of his mouth.

"…. What worked?"

"Food always gets you up." Yami said simply. Joey thought about it for a second, the promptly shrugged and continued eating.

"Got that right."

When everyone was finished eating, Joey looked thoughtful.

"So…how did I get hit with a lamp? And that hard too…?" he said looking at the ceiling. "I remember going upstairs to wake up Tea and Tristan…"

"According to Tea," Yami said. "The lamp was thrown by a spirit pretty hard."

Joey suddenly looked very angry. "Why those no good…sneaking up on me like that! All that did was give me a bad headache. What was the point of doing that to me?!"

Yami looked uncomfortable as if realizing something for the first time. "It split us up…"

When Joey looked at him confused, Yami told him about how they sent Tea and Tristan away to wait at the Ranger's station. When Yami was finished, Joey looked nervous.

"Are you sure Tea and Tristan are okay?"

"Why?"

"Well…on our way here, it seemed…dangerous. What if they…?" Joey didn't seem to know how to finish the sentence, so he left it hanging. But Yugi knew what he meant. What if they got attacked by the same spirits that chased Tristan's horse away?

"They'll be fine," Yami said determinedly. "We have to believe that."

Yugi knew he wanted to believe that, but couldn't shake that sudden, awful feeling that Tea and Tristan were put in more danger in leaving than if they had stayed. He decided not to dwell on it too much. The three of _them_ needed to leave as well.

It was during the silence, that Yugi noticed that Joey was suddenly staring at him. Yugi gave him a questioning look.

"Are you sure _you're_ okay Yugi?" he asked. "It took me a few minutes to remember what happened earlier, but I remember now. You don't look so good…"

Yugi shook his head slightly but stopped as it reignited his dizzy spell. "I'm fine Joey, don't worry about it. _You're_ the one who got hit in the head."

Joey didn't seem to pay that much attention. "What was that thing in my room? Why did it have you so spooked?"

Yugi hesitated, especially since that brought back the memory of him looking at more of those creatures on the third floor. However, he figured that they should know in case of an emergency. So Yugi told them what the spirit girl told him, how the little demons (for lack of a better word) paralyzed their victims before ripping out their soul, and tearing it to pieces before eating it. He also put in how he thought that their might be more upstairs, but didn't say that he saw it himself. He didn't want to admit to Yami that he broke his promise.

Joey cringed when Yugi was done. "That sounds painful…"

They sat in silence again, contemplating their situation, when Yami broke it.

"Yugi, let me see your arm." he said. Yugi blinked. With what happened to Joey and having Tea and Tristan leave, he momentarily was able to ignore the pain that the injury was giving off. Now that Yami reminded him of it, the pain registered back to him full force, and he winced as Yami pulled up his sleeve and took off the bandages.

"So, how did you really get that Yugi?" Joey asked with an eyebrow raised.

Yugi knew that he didn't believe his first story, so he was glad to be able to tell him the truth this time. "Let's just say that one of them didn't like me that much…at all."

"It really _was_ one of those ghosts?" Joey said looking surprised. Yugi wasn't sure what he was expecting.

"Yeah."

Avoiding Joey's stare, Yugi looked at the wound once Yami unwrapped it and was glad to see that it had finally started scabbing over and was no longer bleeding. However, it still looked very red, and hurt like crazy.

"It should probably be rewrapped, just in case," Yami said pulling out the last of the gauze. "I don't know why it took so long to start healing…"

After it was all wrapped again for what Yugi felt was the twentieth time, Yami looked at Joey.

"Do you want something for your head?" he asked.

"Nah I think I'm fine," Joey said. He stood up just to prove his point, but then his face turned a light shade of green and he promptly sat back down. "…Scratch that. Yes…yes I do."

Yami went into the backpack to search for some pain medicine, but came out empty handed.

"That's odd, I could have sworn we had some."

Yugi thought back to when Yami was wrapping his arm before up in the bathroom and remembered seeing some medicine in there before. He mentioned it to Yami, and he agreed that he saw it up there as well.

"I guess I'll go and get it then," Yami said as he stood up. "You two stay here. I'll be right back."

"Wait," Joey said wide eyed. "You shouldn't go up there by yourself."

"It's alright," Yami said holding up the Puzzle. "This can take care of most of the things here."

Yugi nodded, and Joey didn't say anything but still looked a little unconvinced. After Yami left the room, Yugi had to ease his consciousness.

"Don't worry, he can take care of himself," he said. Joey sighed.

"Yeah, I guess so. It's just that all this stuff happening's got me worried."

"Yeah," Yugi thought about what happened in the past few days and looking back, would have never guessed that this house would have brought everything upon them like this. It seemed like forever ago when his Grandfather came up to him and asked him if he could check the place out. Now, when Yugi remembered, Solomon did seem odd that day. Yugi never thought about it then, but looking back, he wished that he paid more attention to it and asked more questions.

"Hey, Yugi?"

Yugi turned to look at Joey, who was staring at him intently again. "Yeah?"

"Can you promise me something?" Yugi blinked.

"What is it?"

"If you have any more troubles with these ghost things, will you please tell me about it? You don't have to handle everything alone you know…"

Yugi opened his mouth to reply, but slowly shut it, not really knowing what to say. This past few days, Yugi had shut everyone out, including Joey, to not hurt or frighten them. Yugi realized now that he did just that by keeping it all a secret and immediately felt bad for doing so. Joey was supposed to be his best friend and it was unfair that he continued to keep him in the dark.

"…Yeah." he said quietly. Joey didn't seem satisfied however, and Yugi looked at him straight this time. He couldn't tell exactly what Joey was thinking but his face seemed to scream that he was worried about something.

"Why didn't you tell anyone about seeing them?"

Yugi looked at him questioningly, not knowing what he was talking about. Then it clicked. He was talking about him being able to see ghosts, and by the way he said it, Joey wasn't sure if he knew how to approach it.

"I…was afraid to I guess." he said quietly. "I didn't know how to explain it to myself, so there was no way I was going to explain it to you guys."

"You mean you didn't want to tell us, because you were afraid how we were going to react." Joey said, as if it was fact.

Sadly, Yugi thought, it _was_. He didn't say anything to Joey though, because admitting that to him was like saying that he didn't trust any of them, which wasn't true. However, it probably seemed that way to Joey, and Yugi didn't know how to properly say how he felt about it. But Yugi's silence seemed to be enough of an answer for Joey.

"Ya know Yugi," Joey said looking across the room in remembrance. "We've been together quite a few years doing crazy stuff. Pegasus's tournament sent your duel to the shadow realm. Kaiba's tournament had people losing their minds. Not to mention that whole thing between you and Yami."

Yugi stayed silent, not really sure what Joey was getting at. When Joey realized that, he stared at Yugi in a huff.

"So tell me Yugi," he said. "How is _this_ any different?"

Yugi stared at him not really sure what to say. He could think of five reasons right off the bat as to why this was different, but they were hard to explain. So it seemed a whole lot easier to just tell Joey he was right, just so he would let the whole thing go.

"Not much different," Yugi said quietly.

Joey was about to say something, when Yami walked into the room holding a bottle of Aspirin.

"Wow, that was quick," Joey said as Yami sat next to him and handed him the bottle.

"I remembered where it was."

Yugi stared at Yami. There was something strange going on. He gave off a troubled air, and wouldn't look at him in the eye. Yugi was around Yami more than enough to know when something was wrong, and since Joey gave him a whole pep talk on not keeping secrets, Yugi wasn't going to let this slide.

"What's wrong?" he blurted out. Joey looked at him in confusion, and then realizing he was addressing Yami, shifted his gaze to him. Yami looked surprised at first.

"W-what?"

"Something happened upstairs, didn't it? What happened?" Yugi said.

With two pairs of eyes on him, Yugi knew that Yami would give in. He wasn't disappointed.

"Well…" he said nervously. "It's a lot more crowed upstairs than it was earlier…"

"Wait, with the ghosts?" Joey said after swallowing the prescribed dose of Aspirin.

"No, full of the demonic spirits. Like the one that was in your room."

The color from Joey's face drained from him. "Oh."

"They're moving…?" Yugi said. The bad spirits were starting to move from the attic and more into the house. They really needed to get going soon.

Yami looked nervously from Yugi to Joey, and Yugi could tell that he was anxious about their reactions, just as Yugi was about telling everyone he could see spirits. So he decided to break the ice a bit.

"It's okay," he said. "As long as they don't come down here. But I guess we shouldn't go upstairs anymore."

"Actually, I was thinking we shouldn't stay in the house anymore," Yami said. "I know you two aren't well enough to ride out of this place yet, but if we can just stay out of the house, hopefully that will be enough to keep these things away. Just until we can leave."

"Hold on, I'm okay enough to leave!" Joey said, and just to prove his point, he stood as he said it. But after a couple of seconds, the green color returned to his face and he had to sit back down. "…In a little bit I will be…"

"It's okay Joey. We can stay for a little while longer. But maybe we can stay in the barn until we leave."

Joey nodded. "Okay, anything to keep away from those stupid things."

Yami looked at Yugi. "Are you okay with this?"

Yugi nodded not seeing what else they could do. Besides, what Yami said did make some sense. The less they were in the house, the better. Not to mention, if they stayed out, maybe that real evil spirit upstairs would stay sleeping too.

So, over the next couple of hours, Yami got everything that he could get together in a couple of backpacks and led the way over to the barn where two horses stood watching them. It took them a while because Joey's head still hurt, and Yugi still felt like crap (to put it simply). The sun was starting to set as Yami set up a campfire.

"So I guess we're spending the night." Joey said trying to help set up the logs.

Yami nodded. "Traveling here at night isn't a great idea."

Yugi looked around. All of the spirits that he saw during the past few days, and more, were all crowded along the tree line of the property. There must have been at least fifty of them, if not more. It was as if they were forced out of the house, just as they were. Yugi kind of felt guilty, but that could have been because all the spirits would glare at him as if it was all his fault. Then again, it could have been just because they all wanted him dead. Yugi wasn't sure.

He would have said something earlier to Yami and Joey, but they got too wrapped up in what they were doing that Yugi forgot. Now that they were settled in however, Yugi didn't want to keep the two of them in the dark any longer.

"Just so you guys know, all the spirits are at the edge of the woods watching us." Yugi said simply. There was a sound of a clatter of a log, and Yugi looked to see Joey looking at him with a shocked expression, his hands looking like he was holding the fallen log only a few seconds ago.

"Seriously?" he asked. "They're not gonna try to attack us, are they?"

Yugi realized his mistake in the way he said it. "Don't worry Joey, they're not coming any closer. I think they're afraid to."

"Why?"

"I think it's because of the house," Yugi said. "Or rather, what's _in_ the house."

"It makes sense," Yami said as he lit the fire. "The spirit in the attic is far more powerful than all of them combined."

"Yeah, _not_ sleeping tonight," Joey said looking frightened.

Yugi sighed and looked back towards the tree line. With the light of the fire, all of their silhouettes looked creepy and ghastly, as if the darkness itself was watching them instead of the spirits.

A few minutes went by of the three of them just staring at the fire, and Yugi started to feel himself doze off. Before he knew it, he was floating above his body again, like the other two times before.

" _W-what_?" he thought frustratingly to himself. " _This can't keep happening every time I fall asleep_."

As much as he wanted to return to his body and get more rest, he couldn't help but look around at all the spirits. There seemed to be much more than when he looked at them earlier. They all seemed to be shuffling around and pacing, almost as if they were waiting for something. Yami's voice directed his attention to the conversation happening right next to him. Yugi looked at his friends who didn't even know that Yugi was floating there. Joey was looking at his body sleeping and Yami had stopped Joey from awakening him.

"Don't wake him. He needs the rest."

Joey nodded and went back to his original position to poke the fire with a stick.

"Hey…Joey?"

Joey looked up to find Yami staring at him, looking serious.

"Yeah?"

"I have a favor to ask of you…" Yami paused for a second before continuing. "Can you help me look after Yugi?"

Joey blinked at the question, and Yugi did too. Joey voiced what Yugi was thinking.

"What do you mean?"

"Well…." Yami looked worried. "These spirits did a number on him…more than he lets on. He tries not to show it but…"

"Like what? What happened?"

"I won't get into detail, but...I believe the spirits are targeting Yugi because he can see them. That means that the evil spirit in the attic might be the same way. I don't want it attacking him…"

"Wait," Joey said sitting up straighter. "You're talking as if that thing is _going_ to wake up soon…like there's no choice."

Yami looked even more nervous, and Yugi was now looking on at the conversation with rapt attention. He felt bad by eavesdropping like this but now, he couldn't help himself. He would be missing it otherwise.

"I…kind of felt that it started to awaken since we first got here. It's possible that it's going to wake up regardless if we leave or not. I realized that when I went upstairs earlier…"

"Wait," Joey stared at him as if trying to put pieces together. "Is that the real reason why you wanted to stay tonight?"

"Well partially, but you guys needed-"

"Why didn't you tell us this from the beginning?" Joey's voice rose to an angry pitch, and Yami had to motion for him to be quiet. Joey lowered his voice but didn't keep his anger out. "What _is_ it with the two of you? First Yugi's keeping secrets and now you?"

"I'm sorry Joey," Yami said and Yugi knew he was sincere. "But before today, would you have believed me? Would you even have wanted to leave? Yugi mentioned it before, but nobody was keen on the idea. As far as I remember, you and Tristan wanted to ghost hunt instead."

Joey stayed quiet so Yami continued.

"Besides, Yugi says there are two evil spirits around. The one that's in the attic, and another one down a path in the woods. It would be bad if they were to meet, which is what Yugi says they're going to do if they awaken."

"Jeez, and how come I didn't hear of any of this?" Joey said sounding bitter. Yugi immediately felt ashamed but Yami gave a pretty good answer that summed everything up.

"Because you were too unconscious from being hit over the head with a lamp for us to tell you."

"…Oh."

"So I think that it's best that we stick around to try and keep this…demon…from waking up." Yami looked back at the house and Yugi followed his gaze. There was a thunderstorm in the distance, so beyond the house, lightning struck. It looked like something out of a Scooby Doo cartoon, except that it was missing the bats flying out of the windows. However, that didn't make it any less creepy or sinister feeling.

"Do you have a plan for that?" Joey asked. Yami shook his head.

"I'm working on it."

Yugi watched them in silence drinking in all that he overheard. So the evil spirit was going to wake up anyway? They were going to need help.

Yugi looked over at all the spirits surrounding them at the tree line.

" _I think it's worth a shot_ …" he thought to himself. With one more look at Yami and Joey, Yugi willed himself quickly over to all the other spirits. He felt vulnerable just gliding along by himself with all those dead eyes watching him, but he would hate himself if he didn't try.

"Um…hi," he said as he got close enough. Some of the spirits looked at him in anger, others in apprehension. Yugi couldn't blame them, yet at the same time, he felt the same way about _them_. "Uh, can we talk?"

A teenage boy who Yugi never saw before stepped out from the crowd. Parts of him looked like he had been stabbed in multiple places. Yugi tried not to pay attention to that.

"Go away," he boy said, his voice sounding like nails on a chalkboard. Yugi cringed but did not back away.

"Look, I know we all got off on the wrong foot but…" Yugi looked around at them all, and realized that every single one of them was coming slowly closer. None of them looked happy. He had to wrap this up quick. "Look, I know we're on the same side. We're both against that thing in the attic, right?"

An old man came up next to the boy. He was the only one that Yugi saw that didn't have a mortal injury inflicted upon him.

"We do not include ourselves in the ways of The Shade."

"The…what? Is that what it's called?" Yugi asked but he might as well have asked the trees.

"Leave now," the old man continued. "Your presence has already made it stir. It will awaken soon and this world will be destroyed."

"Look, I didn't mean for all of this to happen, but now I'm trying to put it right." Yugi said backing up as all the spirits came closer. "We can all work together to make sure that doesn't happen!"

Some of the spirits, Yugi noticed, were seriously taking in what he had to say. Others were not so keen on the idea of taking down this Shade.

"What do you have to lose?" Yugi said. Suddenly, the old man was right on top of him. There was a sudden sharp pain throughout his spiritual body that paralyzed him and he was forced to the ground. When the initial pain stopped, he opened his eyes to see the old man hovering over him but there was someone new next to him. It was the little girl he saw in the closet the day before. She was still bleeding profusely from the gash in her head but she wasn't looking at Yugi, but at the old man with a look of anger on her deadened face. She seemed to be holding the old man back.

"What?" the old man said in anger.

The little girl seemed to puff her chest out a little, as if to make herself seem more intimidating.

"I don't think you should speak for all of us. I think he has a good idea." she said simply. The teenage boy behind her looked at her in shock, and Yugi could hear all of the other spirits mumbling.

"Why do you stand up for him?" the old man said letting up on some anger. "It's _his_ fault the Shade is awakening in the first place."

"Yeah, but…" she looked like she had to think of the words she wanted to say. "I like his idea. We should all be friend…because….it would be good for everyone."

Yugi thought it very strange that not yesterday, the same little girl was yelling at him to go away, frightening him with a pile of dead corpses of his friends. Girls were strange sometimes.

The old man seemed to have a lot to say to that, but had a hard time getting them all out at once, like he wanted to. Yugi stayed on the ground so as to not attract further attention to himself, but once the old man was done trying to talk nonsense, he looked at Yugi, growled, and walked away.

"We shall discuss this." he said walking towards the large group of spirits. The teenage boy followed as did the little girl, but not without giving a small wave to Yugi.

Once he was kind of alone, Yugi thought it was safe to move again. He got up, but for some reason, whatever that old man did to him, caused him to have pain anytime he moved. Yugi looked at his spiritual body and didn't see anything wrong with it. Thankfully he didn't resemble the teenage boy with stab wounds all over him, but he sure felt like he did.

 _"Great, something else I can add to the list to be worried about…"_ he thought to himself as he willed himself back to his body. "Still, it could have been worse."

It was true, Yugi thought. They could have killed or done other unspeakable things to him, but instead, they we're thinking about it. There might be a chance after all! Maybe if they all came together as one, and used the Puzzle, the evil spirits wouldn't stand a chance.

As he got back to the place where they had the fire, he realized that Yami, Joey and his body were no longer there. Not only that, but the fire was out.

"Oh, no…where did they go?" Yugi got nervous. What would happen if he couldn't find his body? But then he remembered what Yami said about sleeping in the barn. So he willed himself inside, and saw three shapes sleeping on the giant pile of straw in the corner. Yugi willed himself into his body, and went to sleep.

The next morning, Yugi woke up with the sound of thunder in the distance. He rubbed his eyes, and looked next to him. Yami and Joey were still sound asleep but Yugi figured that it wouldn't last long. Even thought it was cloudy, it was easy to tell that it was past eight o'clock in the morning.

Yugi sat up, and was met with a sharp pain that radiated throughout his entire body. It was as if he had been beaten all over (and he knew what that felt like). He groaned and laid back down.

" _What's wrong with me_?" he thought to himself. He looked at his hand and realized that it was shaking, along with the rest of him. " _Did I sleep the wrong way or something_?"

Then, Yugi remembered what happened last night, being outside his body again and meeting with the spirits of the property. Whatever that old man did to him, hurt!

Yugi waited for the pain to recede to a suitable level, and tried getting up again. He was more successful than the first time since he knew it was coming, but it didn't make the pain any better. After being beaten up at school a lot before, Yugi knew from experience that moving around helped, so he tried doing it now, but pacing the barn as quietly as possible. Strangely, it did work a little bit, or maybe he was getting used to the sensation. He really couldn't tell.

Thunder rolled in the distance and this time it was louder. Yugi looked outside in time to see lightning bolts striking in the distance. A storm was coming.

It was also strangely still outside. Yugi looked around, and didn't see any spirits in the yard. He wondered where they went off to since last night. Strangely enough, as much as Yugi wished that they would all just disappear, he felt uneasy at their disappearance. He felt that something was going to go wrong very soon, and that wasn't a very nice thing to wake up to…

A shuffling sound behind him caused Yugi to look, and saw that Yami was sitting up and Joey was stirring as well. Yugi turned his attention back on the sky outside, and after a few minutes, Yami walked up to him.

"Is everything alright?"

Yugi sighed. "I suppose. It doesn't look like it's going to be a nice day though, does it?"

Yami paused for a moment as they both stared off into the stormy morning sky.

"No…it doesn't."

After a few more minutes of silence, Joey was finally up and walked over next to Yami.

"Nice day, huh?" he said as more thunder rumbled. At the same time however, his stomach growled, and the two sounds could have been in sync. Joey looked at his stomach then back up at Yami. "What do we got to eat?"

Yami smiled slightly and started to search his backpack for food. Yugi decided to join them but when he moved from the spot he was standing in, he was reminded of the pain that was running through his body and froze for a second. He didn't want Yami or Joey to notice however, so Yugi did his best to mask the pain and walk over normally. The action didn't go unnoticed by Yami however, who's eyes went wide at the motion.

"Is everything okay Yugi?" he asked, pausing from taking items out from the knapsack. Joey looked up from his search as well with a confused look on his face.

Yugi mentally cursed himself but tried to shrug it off. "Yeah, I might have slept the wrong way. It's not like we sleep on straw every night."

"I _know_ , right?" Joey said in a huff. "I already have this crick in my neck from last night!"

Yugi sighed as Joey eventually went back to what he was doing and when Yami reluctantly did the same. He felt bad lying to them again, especially since he promised Joey that he wouldn't do that anymore and that he told him that if he had anymore troubles with the ghosts that he would tell him. However, Yugi felt that the only thing that they would say to him if he told them the truth, is that trying to persuade all the spirits to help was a foolish idea and that he should have never of tried it. Yugi didn't want to be told that, because a lot rode on their help and he wasn't about to give up on them just yet.

Thunder rumbled and the entire barn shook. Yugi, Joey and Yami had to step aside as the horses rushed inside for safety. For a half hour, wind blew, lightning struck and thunder roared quite loudly, but no rain fell. It was almost as if the rain was being held back because it should have fell by that point. After a half hour of this, Yugi looked up at the sky and started to get truly worried. Despite all of the wind that was blowing through, the clouds were not moving. They remained stationary, as if trapped in time.

"You guys should see this…" he said, looking back at them. Yami was previously calming the horses and Joey was looking through their stuff, no doubt looking for more to eat. They both stopped what they were doing however to look outside. Yami looked deeply troubled and Joey looked scared.

"It's close," Yami said quietly. "It won't be long now…"

"Are you sure we can't just leave now?" Joey said looking jumpy.

"No…it's too late…"

And as Yami said that, Yugi looked over at the house and saw something large and black seep through the roof, like tendrils of dark energy.

"Look…" Yugi said without thinking because he was sure that Yami and Joey wouldn't see what he was seeing as clearly. That was probably a good thing though. The house was literally pulsating with dark energy, and if they saw what was emerging from the framework…. he probably thought that it wouldn't be good for morale sake.

Something large, dark and slender was emerging from the house. It was half as tall as the mansion itself and was completely black. Even with his Sight, Yugi couldn't make out any details on it. It was just a solid black shadow in a shape that resembled human, yet at the same time, it wasn't human. Tendrils of dark energy swirled around it and Yugi notice that energy wasn't the only thing around. The fuzzy small black demon things were running around its feet like playful puppy dogs.

Yugi now knew why the spirits around here called this thing "The Shade." It was painfully obvious.

Yugi thought back to the night before when he asked the spirits for help thinking that they might be able to stop the shade. It seemed laughable now. The power that it was giving off was so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

"What in the world is goin on?" Joey said nervously. Yugi figured that even he could feel the energy that the Shade was giving off. Maybe the Shade was so powerful that anyone could see it. "Is it that…thing?"

"Yeah…" Yugi said. Joey gulped.

"It's from the Shadow Realm." Yami said in shock. "Before when it was asleep it was hard to tell, but now…it's definite."

"So…what does that mean?" Joey asked fearfully. Despite the severity of the situation, Yami smiled nervously.

"It means I _may_ have a way to get rid of it."


	6. Chapter 6

"So all you're sayin' is that you need to get close enough to banish it to the Shadow Realm?" Joey asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes," Yami said looking from him to the Shade in the distance every few seconds. "Since it's from the Shadow Realm, it will be easier to do than if it wasn't."

"How did it get out of the Shadow Realm in the first place then?" Yugi asked. Usually only a Millennium Item could take things in and out of the Shadow Realm. If that was true, then it was possible that someone they knew was responsible for the Shade for being in this house.

"I don't know, but this should work on anything from the Shadow Realm, despite how strong it is."

"How are you going to get close enough?" Yugi said looking at the Shade. The tendrils of dark energy pulsated out around it's body a good forty feet. When it moved, the energy pulsated farther. Grass died beneath its feet and Yugi could tell that all the air around it became stale and dangerous…as if it was creating a poisonous disgusting wasteland. The Shade reeked of death and Yugi wasn't sure that getting close to it was such a good idea. Who knows what would happen if the Shade realized that there was someone trying to banish it?

"I don't need to be too close." Yami said. "Maybe twenty feet away from it minimally."

"That's close enough for me." Joey said. "What if it notices you and attacks or something?"

Yami didn't say anything at first and Yugi was afraid that he wasn't going to because he would like to know the answer of that question too. However, Yami just shook his head and said,

"I'll banish it before it gets the chance."

"You need something to distract it." Yugi said suddenly. He remembered what he overheard Yami said the night before about spirits being attracted to him because he could see them. "I'll do it."

Yami looked at him as if he started spitting fire. "No! I'm not letting you get near that."

"I don't need to get close to it or anything, I just need to get its attention so you can send it back to the Shadow Realm. Otherwise, it will attack you."

There was a small silence where Yami contemplated the idea and then Joey spoke up.

"I kinda agree with Yugi. You'll need a distraction." Joey gave Yami a thumbs up. "We'll both distract it so you can do your thing."

Yami looked like he was on the verge of giving in but then Yugi remembered something.

"Oh, but what should we do about the demons?"

"D-demons?" Joey said suddenly fearful. "You wouldn't so happen to be talking about demons as in like the one that was in my room do you?"

"Yeah, the Shade is surrounded by them."

"Then we have to find another way," Yami said adamantly. "There's no way we can get to it when all of the demons are guarding it."

"Well we'd better think of something soon because it's already walking towards the woods. It wants to join forces with the other bad spirit, remember?" Yugi said. He didn't even want to think of what would happen if they did that. Would the world end? Looking at the weather now and how the clouds seemed to be at a perpetual standstill, it seemed all too possible.

Movement from outside the barn door caught Yugi's attention. When he looked, he was surprised to see all of the human spirits from the house standing there, looking at him expectantly. The old man was in front looking unhappy.

"We've come to a conclusion," the old man said. "We will help you."

Relief swept through Yugi, as did a plan of action. They might actually have a fighting chance now!

"Uh, what are you looking at?" Joey asked, looking in the direction Yugi was looking. Yami gasped and backed up.

"It's all the ghosts from the house!"

Joey immediately got angry. "What?! Why those-"

"No guys, wait!" Yugi said hurriedly. "They're here to help us!"

A shocked couple of seconds followed.

"Help us?" Joey said looking at Yugi as if he had gone crazy. "After all of the things they did? Why would they want to help us now?"

"We're all on the same side Joey. They don't want to be near the Shade any more than we do."

"The Shade?" Yami asked confusedly. Yugi nodded.

"Yeah, that's what they call it."

"Well then, why did they do all that stuff to us?" Joey said showing no signs of his anger abating. "One of them hit me over the head with a lamp, another stabbed you in the arm!"

"I know it looks bad Joey, but they were only doing it to try and get us out of the house…to try and stop the Shade from waking up! We nearly woke it up the one time we tried to have a fire in the fireplace, and you should have seen how freaked out they were."

Joey didn't say anything for a few seconds so Yami spoke up.

"I believe you Yugi, but what could they possibly do to help?"

At that, Yugi really wasn't sure. He looked at the large group to see if they had any answers. The old man stepped forward.

"We overheard you talking about the demons patrolling the Shade. We will distract them so that you may do what is needed."

"A-are you sure? What if they paralyze and eat you guys?"

The old man sighed. "Last night, you had asked me what we had to lose from helping you defeat the Shade. I lost my temper thinking that we had everything to lose. I was wrong. If those demons eat us, I believe we will simply pass on, and that is better than living in a world ruled by those monsters."

Yugi nodded in understanding. "You have a point…thank you."

"Er…what now?" Joey said in confusion. Yugi suddenly realized how weird he must have looked talking to seemingly thin air.

"They said that they're going to help us by distracting the demons." he said.

Joey looked shocked and Yami stared at him for a moment before nodding in understanding.

"Then let's do this." he said determinedly.

In a few minutes, Yugi, Yami and Joey led the way towards the Shade with at least one hundred spirits following in their wake. As they were walking, Yami was voicing out loud as how to approach it. Yugi was listening to him until the old man came up next to him and began walking alongside him.

"I wanted to apologize to you." the old man said. To Yugi, he looked older and wearier now than he did the night before.

"…What for?" Yugi asked but did so quietly as to not disturb Yami and Joey in their planning.

"Last night I hurt you. I'm sure you're still feeling it too."

Yugi thought back to when he woke up and he could barely move due to the pain of whatever the old man did to him the night before. It had gotten better since then but if there were long periods of time where he didn't move and he tried moving again, the pain would come back full force.

"Will it go away on its own?"

The old man looked at him for a couple of seconds before answering.

"In time. The spell I placed on you waxes and wanes but eventually it will disappear."

"Spell?" Yugi asked.

The old man chuckled and shook his head. "Yes I forgot. While you may be able to see us, you are young and there is still much for you to learn…Maybe your Light will help you."

He chuckled again falling back to his fellow spirits, leaving Yugi more confused than when they began. It also made him feel uneasy for some reason…as if what they were doing was foolish.

"This is close enough…" Yami said and everyone slowed to a stop. He looked at Yugi and nodded.

Yugi turned and looked at all the spirits. "Is everyone ready?"

There was a loud roar of a hundred spirits cheering in their approval. Yami nodded.

"Then go."

All at once, every single spirit rushed towards the Shade. When they got within fifty yards, they met resistance by the demons. It was almost like a large battle of human spirits and demons. Both sides clashed but with half of the human spirits, there was an almost immediate standstill as some of them got paralyzed by the demon's stares. Compared to the Shade, all of the spirits were like a flock of bees annoyingly stinging it.

"We need to go. Now!" Yugi said urgently.

"Alright, you two be careful." Yami said, the Puzzle starting to glow.

"You too man," Joey said, and he and Yugi ran towards the Shade. "Make sure you don't look at them Yugi."

"Believe me, I know."

The closer they ran towards the Shade, the more oppressive the air became. A rank odor started to waft permeate their nostrils and soon they could no longer run. On the other side of the Shade, they could see Yami experiencing the same thing.

"M-maybe this…wasn't such a great idea," Joey said in-between coughs. "Should we turn back?"

Yugi looked around at all of the spirits being eaten by the demons. They would be paralyzed on second then the demon would open its wide mouth and chow down. They seemed relentless in their onslaught. Yugi then looked over towards Yami who was getting ready send the Shade to the shadow realm.

"It's too late for that," he said. Then Yugi gathered up as much courage as he could muster and yelled towards the Shade. "Hey you!"

Joey followed in his example. "Yeah ugly! Come and look over here!"

Yugi briefly wondered how much of the Shade Joey could actually see before yelling at it again. "We're over here! Look at us!"

The Shade seemed slow to respond but within five seconds it started to look in their direction with its large red eyes. Immediately, the dark tentacles that were surrounding it came hurtling in their direction, intent on grabbing its prey.

"Joey run!" Yugi yelled. Joey ran to the right, and he, to the left. Unfortunately for him though, all of the dark tendrils started hurtling in his direction instead. Within a few seconds, the dark energy reached him, and forced him to the ground. He could hear Joey yelling in the distance, but soon all he could hear was the sound of the Shade's deep voice.

" _You will be my first meal…_ "

It was like the sound of ooze dripping, and soon all Yugi could see was pitch darkness. The darkness began pressing against him from all sides, and soon it started to feel like how he felt during the duel with Pegasus. The darkness was draining his strength and crushing his soul, and he felt powerless against it.

As soon as the feeling came, it stopped. The Shade released its hold on him, reared back and gave such and earsplitting roar that Yugi could hear the remaining windows on the house shattering. Once it had stopped, Yugi looked up and saw the Shade backing up. The reasoning: Yami was shining light from the Puzzle towards the Shade as he possibly could, in order to get it off of him. However, that seemed to only be making the Shade angry. Yugi could still hear it speak in his head.

" _Foolish mortal. Your destruction will fuel my power_!"

The Shade started to walk towards Yami and Yugi got up off the ground as quickly as his body would let him. The Shade had left him weak, but his energy was slowly returning, as if the Shade had forgotten about it and let it go. As he stood up, Joey came running up to him.

"Shoot Yugi," he said panting. "Are you alright?"

Yugi nodded. "Come on, we need to keep its attention!"

Joey hesitated, as if unsure if Yugi really was okay, but then nodded. "Okay, let's do it."

They turned towards the Shade just as it was aiming one of its tentacles towards Yami.

"Look out!" Yugi yelled towards him.

Apparently, that's the moment that Yami was looking for. Just as the dark tentacle was about to reach him, he let loose a barrage of the Puzzle's power. The Shade froze for a couple of seconds, then shattered like glass, turned into powder and disappeared into what looked like a small worm hole. A mass of purple energy gobbled up the powder and then vanished.

As soon as the Shade was gone, multiple squeals were heard from behind them. Yugi looked and all of the fuzzy demons had stopped fighting. They looked frightened, as if they didn't know what to do once their leader was gone. In a couple more seconds, the all ran off in a flash, and the battlefield was silent.

The air suddenly became lighter and it was suddenly easier to breath. Joey looked around in shock.

"He did it?!"

Yugi sighed in relief. "Yeah."

Joey then yelled over to Yami. "Yeah man! That was awesome!"

Yugi looked at Yami as he came over and he seemed out of breath. He couldn't blame Yami though, he used up a lot of energy.

"Are you both alright?" Yami said once he was within earshot.

"Yeah," Yugi said. "Are you?"

"Just tired." he panted. "But we did it."

"Well, let's all rest for a sec, huh?" Joey said. He led them back to the barn where the horses stood staring at them, as if they were waiting for their return.

As they neared the barn, Yugi looked back for any signs of remaining spirits. Throughout the entire field, he could only count five of them, those of which he had no idea who they were. It made Yugi feel immensely guilty, but he hoped that whoever wasn't there was able to pass on.

"Now all we have to do is find Tea and Tristan and then go home." Joey said as they all settled back into the barn. Yugi and Yami had sat down on the straw while Joey stood to pet the horses, seeing as how they followed them back inside.

"Hopefully they're at the Ranger's station…" Yami said. He seemed to have caught his breath. "But we should go and meet them there as soon as we're ready."

Joey then went straight from petting his horse to looking in his backpack for food. He found a couple of bags of trail mix and threw one each to Yami and Yugi. Everyone ate their food and sat in silence for a moment until another clap of thunder broke everyone from their reverie. Since Joey was the one standing, he walked over to the doorway to check the weather. He stood there for about a whole minute before turning around.

"Um…I think you guys should see this." he said uncertainly.

Yugi and Yami gingerly got up to see what was bothering him. When they got to the doorway, Joey pointed up.

The thunderstorm was still active. Another clap of thunder, this time louder, broke the silence and Joey jumped slightly. What caught their eye though was that the clouds were still stationary, as if frozen in time, without a single drop of rain. The wind was also starting to pick up and the lightening was becoming more frequent.

"What could be causing this?" Yami said worriedly. "We banished the Shade…I assumed that it was the source."

"Yeah, me too." Joey mumbled.

Movement to the right caused Yugi to look, and to his surprise, the old man was standing there, staring at him as if waiting for him to notice.

"You've won the first battle," he said.

"First?" Yugi asked. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Yami and Joey look his way, wondering who he was talking to. "You mean that…"

"This storm is proof of it's coming. You must destroy the _other one_."

Yugi stared at him for a second in shock. "You mean the other one is waking up too?"

The old man laughed. "Waking up? Son, the Shadow is already awake. Don't you see the storm getting worse? This one has had time to wake up, so it'll be quicker too."

"The Shadow? Oh no…" Yugi said. If what the old man says is true, that could also mean that Tea and Tristan are in more danger than they realized. He looked at the spirit pleadingly. "How many of you are left? Can you help us again?"

"There are too few of us to be as a good as help as last time, but we will aid you however possible."

"Thanks." Yugi turned to Yami and Joey who were giving him equally confused looks. "Sorry about that, but we need to go."

Yami was immediately on high alert. "What's wrong?"

Yugi told them what the spirit told him and both of them were disturbed.

"Was this the other bad spirit that you were talking about?" Joey asked. "The one along the path in the woods?"

"Yeah."

"Why is that one called The Shadow, and the one that was in the house called The Shade?"

"Probably because each one dominates over that element." Yami said in thought. "The Shade used shade energy while The Shadow uses Shadow energy."

"…I'm confused." Joey said scratching his head.

"What matters is that we need to get rid of it as soon as we can," Yugi said. "Tristan and Tea are in danger."

"Oh man, you're right!" Joey slapped his forehead causing himself to wince. "Should we leave now?"

"We have to," Yami said. "There's no choice."

Yugi looked at the old man again to see that the rest of the remaining spirits were now behind him. None of them he recognized.

"Are you guys ready?" he asked them. They all nodded.

In a few minutes, the three of them had packed all of their stuff and were in the woods riding on their horses. It was harder than normal because the horses were continuously spooked by either the claps of thunder, or the spirits gliding behind them. Riding was particularly difficult for Yugi because he still felt ill and the last fight with the Shade didn't help matters. He still felt dizzy and weak, not to mention just plain tired. Luckily his horse had eyes of its own so it avoided trees and bushes that he would have otherwise run into. He wasn't sure how the other two were doing however, since Yami was low on energy and Joey had to deal with his head injury from the day before. Yugi would glance at them from time to time, but they seemed fine to him.

"Wait, stop," Yugi said pulling the reins on his horse. Yami and Joey did the same. "This is the place."

He looked at the trail that he almost walked into on the first day they arrived. His horse had almost taken him on the path before, and then it looked menacing. Now it looked worse. Tendrils of shadow energy were whisking back and forth along the path, side by side. Fog seemed to conjure itself out of nowhere and seep out into the opening of the path, where they stood on their horses.

"…Looks like fun." Joey said jokingly.

"We have to be on high alert." Yami said. "There's no telling what's waiting for us in there."

"You're right," Yugi said taking a deep breath. "Let's do this quickly then."

The three of them urged their horses forward but they seemed unwilling to go any farther down the path. They whinnied and backed up a few steps, adamant on staying where they were.

"I guess we're going on foot then…" Joey said climbing off his horse. Yugi and Yami copied him and the three of them set down the path.

Yugi, Yami and Joey must have walked along the path for a good half hour before coming upon a clearing. It was wide clearing surrounded by thick brush and trees. However, what immediately drew their eyes was the tall figure standing in the middle of it. It was about the same size as the Shade, yet the Shadow seemed darker than its predecessor. Instead of oozing malice and dripping distain, the Shadow seemed wispier than the Shade. The edges of its figure faded away slowly and it's eyes were the darkest part of it. It was almost like a mixture of light and darkness that came together in one blob and was trying to take form. This was the kind of monster that kids were afraid to see in their closet late at night, and that didn't reassure the trio as they beheld it.

Yugi gulped. "This thing is…"

He couldn't find the right words at first. He didn't want to say evil, but that was the only word that could come to mind. It radiated malice and it seemed to remind him of everything bad that happened in his life, making everything seem much darker than usual. Judging by the looks on Yami and Joey's faces, they were thinking the same thing.

"So how do we beat it?" Joey asked.

"Do we want to try the same thing as last time?" Yugi asked looking at Yami. He wasn't sure if the ex-pharaoh had enough energy in him to send another monster to the shadow realm but Yami didn't look like he was about to give up right now.

"If you two are okay with it." he said looking at both of them. Joey and Yugi nodded.

Yami looked at Yugi directly. "What about the remaining spirits? Are they still going to help us?"

Yugi nodded and looked behind him. The spirits were unnaturally quiet upon coming onto the path but he somehow knew that they were behind him the whole time.

"Can you guys distract it?"

The old man in front nodded and the other four followed suit.

"Then go."

Immediately the five spirits rushed towards the Shadow in speed that Yugi wouldn't have thought possible. Luckily for them, the Shadow didn't have any little fuzzy demons protecting it but the spirits still needed to keep its attention.

"Come on Joey, let's help them." Yugi said, running towards the figure. He could hear Joey running behind him and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Yami running on the opposite end of the Shadow.

"Hey, ya jerk!" Joey yelled once they got close enough. Unlike the Shade who took a few seconds to respond, the Shadow responded immediately, looking from the five spirits running around in circles at its feet to them. A loud menacing growl emanated from it and it raised a large hand that came for them.

" _Move_!" yelled a voice from out in front of them.

Joey jumped out of the way, but just as Yugi was about to do the same, a sudden pain came across his body and he suddenly found it too hard to move. As he fell to one knee, he recognized it as the spell that the old man had put on him yesterday. He felt the same as he did when he first woke up that morning where he could barely move and it surprised him. It couldn't have activated at a worse time.

"Ack! No, come on!" Yugi groaned. "Not now!"

The Shadow's hand was suddenly wrapped around him and he could feel the being lift him off the ground and brought him towards it.

Now Yugi's been to the Shadow realm a couple of times and he knew how it felt to be wrapped in the shadows. The duel with Pegasus had been the most uncomfortable time that it happened. However, being in contact with the Shadow made that seem like child's play. The Shadow was made from pure shadow energy and it was probably what made the Shadow Realm what it was. The shadows seeped into his very soul and threatened to overwhelm him. It was literally crushing his spirit and it was twice as painful as with the duel with Pegasus. He resisted the urge to cry out as the Shadow brought him closer to its face. The Shadow's facial expressions were hard to read, seeing as how it's eyes, nose and mouth kept changing shapes as easily as someone's shadow.

" _You are a strange one_ ," a voice echoed in his head. It didn't take long for Yugi to realize that it was the Shadow's voice. " _One with so much Light yet so susceptible to Darkness_."

Yugi could not muster the energy to reply. His vision was starting to get as dark as the being was holding him and he could feel his energy being sapped.

Suddenly, the Shadow let out a horrifying screech. The grip that the Shadow had on Yugi loosened and he felt himself falling towards the ground and then darkness. The next thing he knew, he was in Joey's arms, on the ground. Yugi blinked, not sure how he got there, then looked up at the Shadow. All five of the remaining spirits were flying around the Shadow's head like an angry swarm of hornets. At every chance they got, one would ram into the head of the monster and the Shadow would screech and swat at the spirits with angry vitality. The first time it swatted, one of its large hands hit one of the spirits, and it disappeared in a haze of dust. The rest were met with narrow misses. Yugi then noticed that Yami was also helping the spirits. He was doing what he did with the Shade before and throwing energy balls at it, from the Millennium Puzzle. That combined with the spirits provocations were making the Shadow very angry indeed.

Seeing the severity of the situation, Yugi tried getting up which drew Joey's attention away from Yami and the Shadow to him.

"Dude!" Joey said urgently. "Just chill for a second. Are you alright?"

Yugi thought about that question for a moment. He felt weaker than when he did before, which was saying something. He decided not to answer Joey's question until he stood up, so he tried to do just that and it was harder than he expected. Joey didn't stop him from trying but looked worried as he did so. Yugi stood up but his entire frame shook, and he wasn't sure how much energy he had left in him.

"I'll be fine," Yugi managed to say with some effort. "You need to help Yami…"

Joey looked torn for a couple of seconds, as if he wasn't sure what to do, then nodded making a decision. "Alright, you get somewhere safe, I'll be right back-"

Joey might have taken one step in Yami's direction but the Shadow made its loudest screech yet. Yugi looked up at the Shadow and noticed that all of the spirits were nowhere to be found. They either fled, or were destroyed and sent on, which Yugi was a little sad to see. But that was overrode by the fact that the Shadow seemed angrier than ever. Yami had stopped attacking it and seemed worn out, however the damage seemed to be done. The Shadow let loose another screech and quicker than anything Yugi has ever seen for something so large, it ran into the woods and out of sight. After the Shadow left, the sounds of the thunderstorm overhead started to make more noise and thunder roared overhead.

Yugi sighed and sat on the ground to rest. The Shadow was gone for the moment but what would happen if it came back if they weren't ready? Honestly, Yugi wasn't sure why it fled. If it had stayed and continued what it was doing, it might have won…not that he was complaining. It just seemed weird.

Suddenly, Yami was by his side, kneeling beside him. Yugi wasn't sure how he got there so fast seeing as how worn out Yami looked.

"Yugi, did you hear me? What's wrong?" he said. Yugi blinked and shook his head. He must have blanked out for a couple of seconds.

"Sorry, I heard you…I'm fine. What about you? You look tired…"

Yami gave him a strange look then said, "I'm alright but I'm not the one we should be worried about. You're hurt…"

Yugi felt a little confused as he heard Joey quietly curse behind him as he seemed to just notice what Yami was talking about. Yugi didn't think much about it. "No I'm not, I'm just tired, that's all."

Yami continued to look at him strangely, then after a couple of seconds looked at Joey. "We can't fight this Shadow right now. We won't win…we have to rest for a while."

"Yeah," Joey said nervously, looking back and forth from Yami to Yugi. "You're right. Where should we go though? Not back to the house…"

"No, we can't go back there, and we can't stay here. We should go deeper in the woods, where we'd be less likely to be found."

"Alright."

"But first thing's first," Yami said looking back to Yugi. "Yugi, lie down for a couple of minutes."

"What? Why?" Yugi said. He wasn't sure why Yami and Joey were acting this way. Sure he was grabbed by the Shadow but that was no reason to be acting weird.

"Yugi, I'm not sure if you even realize what's happened to you. Just trust me and lay down. We need to treat your wounds."

Yugi blinked. "W-wounds? Where?"

However, before he could even start to look himself over, Joey gently pushed him down to the ground. Yugi didn't complain but felt more confused than ever. What happened to him? Sure he felt drained, and a little out of it but that couldn't be what they were talking about if they were acting this way.

Yami looked at Joey. "Do you still have the first aid kit with you?"

Joey nodded and rummaged through his backpack for a second before bringing it out. In the meantime, Yugi had tried lifting himself up again to see what the fuss was about but his adrenaline had suddenly left him and he could barely lift his head at all. Not to mention, when he tried, he got another dizzy spell and immediately stopped. He had closed his eyes to ward it off, and then there was darkness.

When he opened his eyes again he seemed to be moving. Confused, he looked around and realized that Joey had him cradled in his arms while he and Yami walked through the woods. Joey noticed that he was awake and said something to Yami to stop walking.

"Hey, how are ya doing?" Joey said. Yami appeared next to him with a worried expression.

Yugi shook his head slightly before speaking. "W-what happened? Where are we?"

Yugi was annoyed that his voice came out sounding so weak. He was also frustrated that now their faces kept on coming in and out of focus so that it was hard to look at them in general.

"You passed out dude," Joey said. "We were fixing you up when you blacked out. We've been walking for like an hour now."

Yugi felt immediately horrible for putting them through that. Not to mention Joey had to carry him all this way, which had to be tiring. "I'm sorry guys, I-"

"Yugi you don't need to be sorry," Yami said. "It's not your fault."

When Yugi didn't say anything, Yami turned to Joey.

"I think this should be far enough Joey," he said. Joey nodded.

"I'm gonna put you down over here, alright Yugi?" he said.

As Joey put him down on the ground next to a tree, a sharp pain erupted from his left arm. Yugi flinched and lifted his arm so he could better look at it. It was then he realized that from his shoulder down to his wrist was covered in bandages. Blood had started to seep through some of the ones closer to his shoulder and near his elbow. He remembered earlier of Yami and Joey mentioning about him having wounds on him. He didn't even remember getting them, let alone feeling them. Joey saw him looking and pushed his arm down again.

"Try not to move it too much. We're out of bandages so once we have to change them, that's it."

Joey sat beside him on his left and Yami sat on his right. He tried not to look at either of them because a part of him felt ashamed of getting caught by that Shadow, but he knew that Yami was right. It wasn't his fault.

A sudden sharp pain in his head stopped Yugi's thought process and he raised his good hand towards his head, only to realize that his head had some bandages on it too. He felt a hand on his arm and when he looked he realized that Yami was lowering his arm like Joey did not seconds before.

"Don't touch it, alright?"

"How did that happen?" Yugi asked. He didn't understand what was going on and he couldn't think of another time that he felt so confused. It was frustrating him to no end.

"You must have hit your head pretty hard if you don't remember any of this…" Joey said with a raised eyebrow. "But I guess you were a bit zoned out earlier."

Yugi blinked. That would explain why he couldn't remember much since the incident. It still bothered him though.

"When the Shadow dropped you," Joey continued. "You landed on the ground pretty hard, so I'd assume that's how you hit your head. All the other ones though, I guess the Shadow did it…"

Yugi thought back and remembered the Shadow squeezing him but he still had no idea how he got all those wounds. He guessed if the Shadow's hand had nails, that could do some damage but he couldn't remember if it had any or not.

"So what now?" Yugi decided to change the subject. "How do we get rid of it?"

"We're going to have to think on it for now." Yami said tiredly. "We need to rest though or we won't be able to do anything. Tomorrow might be a good time to start thinking about it…"

"What about Tea and Tristan?" Yugi asked suddenly thinking of them. They had no idea what happened to those two and he was starting to get anxious. Yami sighed.

"There's nothing we can do right now. We'll just have to believe that they made it out of these woods alright."

Joey nodded. "If you want, you two can get some rest and I'll keep watch."

"If you're okay with it…"

Joey gave a thumbs up. "No prob man."

Yugi looked at him. "How much of the Shadow can you actually see Joey?"

"…Well I can see an outline, but it's big enough to where I can see it from like, a mile away. So don't worry if it comes I'll let you guys know."

"Thanks Joey," Yugi said gratefully. And with that, he and Yami laid down to get some much needed sleep.

Yugi figured that he was asleep for a few hours before he found himself, once again, floating above his body. If the thunder clouds weren't vacating the sky, the sun might have been setting, but most of the light now came from lightening. He looked around for a couple of seconds, feeling confused for the millionth time that day, then realized what happened: He had fallen asleep and somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind he decided that now would be a good time to have an out of body experience. Wonderful.

Yugi looked to his right to see Yami fast asleep, using his backpack as a pillow. He was glad Yami was finally able to rest with all of the energy he used up earlier. Looking to his left, he saw Joey sitting on a stump keeping a lookout as he said he would. Yugi felt a little sorry for him seeing as how he looked tired too and wished there was something he could do to help.

" _Wait, maybe there is_ …" he thought to himself. With one last look at Yami, Yugi willed himself into the sky to get a better view of the surrounding area. "If I can find out where it is, I'll just wake up and tell them where it is so we don't have to go looking for it later…"

Once he flew over the top of the canopy of the trees, Yugi slowed his ascent and looked around. For the most part, he could only see tree tops and a cloudy (and occasionally lightening filled) sky. However, a strange movement caught his eye in the distance. It was almost like smoke, but it disappeared as soon as it came to about the height he was at now. Curious, Yugi lowered himself back into the trees and willed himself over to that area. When he got nearby he stayed behind a tree and looked on.

"W-what?!" Yugi gasped.

He was back at the house, at the edge of the field surrounding the barn. The house looked as broken as ever, especially with all of its windows shattered. But that's now what drew Yugi's eye. In the middle of the clearing by the barn, stood the Shadow. It was just standing there, completely still as if it had turned into a statue. The only reason why Yugi knew that it had not was because the wisps of shadow energy surrounding its outline were still moving as normal. It almost looked like it was waiting for something.

Something out of place drew Yugi's eyes to the ground by the Shadow's feet. Two human figures lay on either side of it, and by the looks of it, they were unconscious. Yugi briefly wondered if they were spirits before he recognized who they were.

"Tea! Tristan!" he said in shock. "Oh no….no no…"

Yugi fought back an overwhelming desire to rush to their sides. Going over there would only get him killed and would be no help to Tea and Tristan. He didn't know how they got into the clutches of the Shadow so quickly but he desperately wanted to help them. The only way he could think on how to do that is with Yami and Joey's help.

" _I have to go back and tell them_ …" he thought to himself. With one more look at the Shadow and his captives, Yugi willed himself as fast as he could go back towards his body.

It only took a few seconds for him to almost collide with someone.

Without thinking, Yugi stopped to avoid running headfirst into the person.

"S-sorry, I didn't mean to-" Yugi froze as he beheld the figure in front of him. "Tea?!"

"Yugi! Oh my God, am I glad to see you!" she looked completely relieved.

Yugi looked at her in shock. He was one hundred percent positive that he just saw her at the foot of the Shadow, completely out of it. So how was she standing here now?

"Tea, how…?" Suddenly, the answer hit him with the force of a stampeding bull. Tea was standing in front of him as a spirit…her body lay back with the Shadow. "Wait…you're not…not _dead_ are you?"

Tea looked at him fearfully. "No…I don't think so…"

Yugi didn't believe it. He didn't want it to be true but all of the signs were pointing that she was dead. "Then how are you like this? Why aren't you in your body?"

At first Tea looked real confused and a little frightened by what Yugi was talking about. Then comprehension dawned in her eyes and she looked saddened by the thought.

"That's right…how could I forget?" she said quietly. Yugi waited with bated breath for an answer, and when Tea realized this she started speaking.

"When Tristan and I left the house…we somehow got lost. I don't know how but no matter what path we took or which direction we went, there wasn't a way to a trail or back to the house. Then, something attacked us, we lost our horses and then I don't remember anything until today…"

Tea spoke quickly as if she was afraid Yugi would start freaking out, but he stayed quiet to allow her to finish speaking.

"This morning," she said avoiding Yugi's gaze. "I woke up outside my body, and that…that _thing_. It said something to me. It said to run…run as fast as I can and not to look back. So that's what I've been doing…but I swear to you Yugi, that I just know that I'm not dead right now. It's just a feeling, you know?"

Yugi nodded. After this past week, he thought he might be able to understand unexplainable feelings.

"But…I don't know what to do…" she said sadly. "Every time I go back to get inside my body again or to help Tristan, that thing just tosses me back out and tells me to run. I don't understand why it's doing this…"

"Tea, it's alright," Yugi said sighing. He believed Tea when she said that she wasn't dead, and Yugi clung onto that belief like a lifeline. "Look, come with me. We'll get help from Yami and Joey and I'll explain all of the stuff with the evil spirits that you missed since you left."

So on the way back to Yami and Joey, Yugi explained about the Shade, and what they had to do to destroy the Shadow. By the time Yugi was done with the basic explanation, they had arrived back at the campsite. Yami was still asleep and Joey had taken it upon himself to nap next to the stump that he was previously sitting on.

"So much for our lookout," Yugi said amusingly looking at Joey. Not that he could blame the guy, he hadn't slept in a while. It was just funny to see him fast asleep and drooling. Joey mumbled something about donuts before making himself more comfortable and turning over.

Yugi looked at Tea to make a joke about it and realized that she wasn't looking at Joey, but at _his_ body.

"Tea?" he said to get her attention. She immediately looked at him worriedly.

"So how did _you_ get like this? You know…like a spirit. You're still alive, right?"

Yugi sighed. "Yeah. I had a bad run in with a demon the other day…so this happens now every time I sleep. I wish I had control over it."

"But you can go back to your body at any time?" Tea asked walking over to his body. Yugi followed, nodding.

"Yeah." he said, knowing what Tea was getting at. "Don't worry, you _will_ be able to get back into your body. If you're still alive, you will."

"Yugi, what happened to you?!" Tea said worriedly, looking at his body. Yugi followed her gaze and realized what she meant. He hadn't really had a chance to look at himself in the mirror since all this started but now he had a perfect view. He looked like he lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time, and his body could have been a ghost seeing as how pale he looked. He still had the bandages on his left arm and on his head, making it look like he was in a fight and lost (which in reality wasn't all that uncommon). A different spot of red on his jacket caught his eye and he looked a little closer. There were bandages underneath on his chest, which confused Yugi because he didn't remember getting or feeling that one.

"Wow, the Shadow messed me up more than I thought…" Yugi said without thinking. Tea looked at him with a shocked expression on her transparent face.

"That giant…Shadow _thing_ did this to you?! Then Yugi, forget about us, you need to go to a hospital! Don't go after it again!"

"Tea, I'm not going to leave all of you. If I was going to do that, I would have gone with you and Tristan when you first left the house."

For a second, Tea looked like she was going to say something as a retort, but then stopped then sighed. She looked at Joey, then Yami, and then back at his body again.

"Yugi you seem to be a target for this thing…I just don't want to see you get hurt any more that's all."

It was times like these that Yugi wished that Tea wasn't so perceptive about those kinds of things, but there was nothing he could say that would stop her from worrying about him, even when her own life was in jeopardy. All he could do was comfort her about it.

"Tea, spirits have been attracted to me since we got here, so there's really nothing new about it."

"It's because you can see them, right?"

At first Yugi was surprised that she brought that up, especially when he kind of told her and Tristan in a hurry. Then he remembered that this was Tea he was talking to, and that she wasn't going to let something like that go one ear and out the other.

"…Yeah, I guess so." he said quietly.

"When we get out of this mess, you'll have to tell me what it's like," she said trying to sound cheerful. It sounded forced to Yugi. "But I guess it's not too much different than us talking right now, huh?"

"No, I guess not," Yugi sighed. "Look I'm going to go back into my body and get everyone up. Now that we know where you guys are at, we should get rid of that Shadow as soon as possible."

Tea looked at him, then to Yami and Joey, then back to him.

"I think it can wait." she said. Yugi looked at her, surprised.

"What? Why? Tea, that Shadow could do horrible things to you and Tristan. If we wait too long…"

"It hasn't really moved much since it took me out of my body so I don't think it's going to do anything now. In fact, I think it might be waiting for you guys to show up…"

Yugi thought about what she said for a second before realizing. "Like a trap?"

Tea nodded. "Maybe. Besides, you three need to rest. Even as a spirit, you look worn out. So I'll wait here and replace Joey as a lookout, seeing as how he fell asleep."

Yugi looked at Tea for a second, realizing that she wasn't going to back down no matter what he said. "Alright. I'll try to wake up soon though. I don't want to keep you waiting…"

Before Tea had a chance to say anything else, Yugi willed himself back into his body and darkness overcame him once more.


	7. Chapter 7

Yugi wasn't sure how much time had passes since his conversation with Tea, but when he opened his eyes, Joey was awake and rummaging his book bag for food again. It seemed light again but the storm never passed. Yugi didn't say anything at first, mostly because he was trying to deal with all the pain that was now shooting through his body. They were mostly coming from the wounds that were on his arm and chest. He wasn't sure why he couldn't feel it before but now he was sure he could feel it all, and it wasn't a nice feeling.

Looking to his right, he saw that Yami was getting up himself, but he hadn't sat up yet. Remembering his conversation with Tea earlier, Yugi looked around for her, and saw her sitting on the stump that Joey previously occupied. She looked sad as she watched Joey eat his food, and Yugi could tell that she was yearning to go back into her own body.

What happened earlier also came back to him and he tried to sit up, but was met with dizziness and pain in his head and chest. Trying to ignore it, Yugi closed his eyes and sat up all the way which made it worse for a few seconds but soon, it dulled down to a tolerable level. When he opened his eyes, he was surprised to see Tea kneeling next to him with a worried look on her face.

"Ack! Tea…" Yugi said quietly. "Warn me the next time you're going to do that…"

"Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to scare you. Sometimes it's hard to forget that no one can really see me like this."

"Yugi, is everything alright?" Yami said behind him. Yugi looked at him in surprise, not realizing that he was fully awake. "How are you feeling?"

"As good as I can be despite the situation." Behind him Yugi heard Tea mumble, " _Well that's incredibly vague_."

Yugi ignored the comment, mostly because Yami had that look on his face saying that he was thinking the same thing. He stared at Yugi for a couple more seconds before standing up and walking over to Joey, who was still rummaging through their bag. He mumbled something to Joey about painkillers. While Yami and Joey were distracted, Yugi turned to Tea.

"How long were we asleep?" he asked her.

Tea sighed . "Well when I got here it was getting close to nighttime. So seeing as how it's morning now, I would say all night."

"Wait, it's morning?" Yugi looked up at the sky, but to him it looked the same as it did before: grey and full of lightning, although it did seem darker than before.

"Nah, I'm just kidding." she said with a smirk. "It's only been a few hours. I think the sun's going to set soon."

"Ugh, don't do that. You scared me for a second… _again_." Yugi ran a hand through his hair, almost forgetting about the bandage that was wrapped from his forehead and around the back. He flinched as it ignited the pain in his head again. He wasn't sure how hard he hit it but he was just glad he didn't have amnesia or something. That would really brighten up his day.

"I'm just trying to bring up the mood…" Tea said quietly. Yugi looked at her and noticed how glum she looked. Everything must have seemed pretty grim for her at the moment, so he could see why she would need some fun.

Before he could say anything to her however, Yami and Joey walked over and sat by him, Joey tossing him a granola bar.

"So we've misplaced the painkillers that we had," Yami said pointing a glare in Joey's direction before looking at Yugi with an apologetic expression. "So I'm sorry Yugi but you're going to have to deal with the pain only a little bit longer."

"Jeez, I said I was sorry," Joey said rolling his eyes, but still looked even more apologetic than Yami. "I must have dropped them after the whole Shade incident."

"Guys, don't worry about it," Yugi said trying to sound upbeat. "Honestly, it doesn't really hurt that much anymore."

Both of them looked as though they really didn't believe him so Yugi decided to change the subject.

"Anyway so what's the plan for taking on the Shadow this time?"

Joey and Yami looked at each other uncertainly.

"I'm not sure," Yami said. "This Shadow is much more powerful than the Shade and seemed more resistant to the Puzzle. If it has a weakness, we first need to figure out what that is before approaching it again. Otherwise, the next defeat may be our last."

"Well we've got time to think about it. I mean, it's not like we know where it is or anything." Joey said shoving the rest of his granola bar into his mouth.

"Actually, it's back at the house," Yugi said without thinking. He immediately got two strange looks from his friends. In the corner of his eye, he saw Tea giving him a surprised look. "I-I mean…uh…"

"Wait, how do you know?" Joey said.

Yugi didn't mean to blurt the answer out like that, and he wished he hadn't. He had full intentions on telling them about Tea and Tristan's predicament, but wanted ample time to try to think of a way to properly explain it to them, seeing as how they might not take the information well. However, since he messed that up, Yugi tried to think up of a good way to explain it without messing up the plan that they just thought up.

"Well…Tea told me." Yugi said thinking that if he were in their shoes, he would have thought himself crazy. Tea gave him the surprised, " _You're lying to them_?!" look.

Yami was looking at him with an alarmed expression.

"Wait, was she here?" Joey said.

"She _is_ here…"

It was time for Joey's expression to become alarmed. Yugi suddenly realized what they might be thinking so he immediately cut to the chase.

"Tea is a spirit right now, but she's not dead."  
"What do you mean Yugi?" Yami looked very alarmed now. His eyes darted from Yugi to where Tea was sitting, as if unsure what to think. "If she's a spirit, how is she not dead?"

Yugi hesitated in telling them about his out of body experiences, mostly because he didn't want them freaking out about it. He only ever mentioned it briefly to Yami when it first started happening, but never said anything about it again.

"You can be out of your body and not dead," he said. He looked directly at Yami. "We used to do it all of the time."

Yami seemed to struggle to find what he wanted to say, whilst looking back and forth still from him to where Tea was. It seemed that he was finally paying attention to his surroundings and was able to sense that Tea was there.

"But Yugi, the circumstances on how it happens…"

"I know," Yugi said. "But Tea said it herself, she doesn't think she's dead."

Yami became silent at that, but the silence didn't last long for Yugi since Tea started talking.

"Hey Yugi, can he see me?" Tea asked looking at Yami.

"Yeah…it's a little different but yeah." Yugi said ignoring the strange look he was receiving from Joey.

"Can he hear me?"

Yugi raised an eyebrow, wondering what she was thinking but nodded.

"Cool." Tea said. She then promptly walked up to Yami, sat next to him and yelled at the top of her lungs. "HEY! I'M NOT DEAD!"

Yami must have jumped about a foot in the air. He immediately stood up, and looked down at Tea indignantly rubbing his ear. "Tea, I can hear you, alright? You don't need to shout…"

"Just had to make sure," Tea said laughing. Yugi couldn't help but smile at Tea's upbeat attitude. He wouldn't know what to do if their positions were switched and was glad that she was taking it so well.

"You mean she really _is_ here?" Joey said looking at Yami in surprise. Yugi felt a twinge of annoyance that he didn't believe him, but ignored it.

"Yes." Yami said sitting back down. "She's here alright. But is Tristan here?"

"No," Yugi shook his head sadly. "Their bodies are with the Shadow, back at the house."

"Wait, how do you know?" Joey said looking skeptical again. Yugi answered without hesitation this time.

"Because Tea told me. But she also warns us it could be a trap, so I don't know how you guys want to approach it…"

"Don't fall into a trap guys," Tea said. "Don't make me feel even more guilty than I already do…"

Yami sighed. "Well since we know where it's at now we can plan a little more at how we're going to defeat it."

"Maybe you need to weaken it first before trying to send it to the shadow realm." Joey suggested.

"But I already tried that the last time, and that didn't go so well."

Everyone lapsed into silence as they contemplated their next move. After a minute, Yami spoke up.

"Yugi, you said that the Shadow was at the house. Why is it there?"

"…I don't know. Tea said that it was just standing there…waiting."

"It's probably _is_ a trap then." Joey said. "Are these thing supposed to be smart? Maybe we can trick it."

"I don't feel comfortable with making a plan without scoping the area first. If it is a trap, then finding out what's there before moving in is the best idea." Yami said. "Why don't we just go there and examine it from a distance before making a plan."

"Sounds good to me." Joey said standing up.

"Yugi, will you be able to walk?" Yami said.

"Yeah," Yugi then attempted to stand as well. He almost stood up all the way when he got a big dizzy spell and fell back down. Luckily Yami had walked up to him during his attempt and caught him before he fell.

"Yugi!"

"S-sorry," Yugi said shaking his head. "I just…stood up too fast."

"Don't rush yourself Yugi," Yami said beginning to lowering him down the ground. Yugi however had different plans.

"Wait, I can stand. Just…help me up."

Yami hesitated, then helped Yugi to stand. At first Yugi still felt dizzy in the head but within a few seconds the world stopped spinning. His whole body felt like it was on fire though, and it felt like everything that happened to him during that week was finally taking its toll on him. His body started to shake a little and Yugi wondered how much longer he would last before he couldn't take anymore.

"Are you sure about this Yugi?" Yami said looking worried. "Maybe you should sit back down."

"No, it's fine…" Yugi said. He took a deep breath to try and get used to how he was feeling. It was hard though when his head was still pounding along with the rest of him. He could feel his body rocking slightly as if he was on the deck of a ship.

"Dude, you've got to stop," Joey said walking up to him quickly. He looked frightened, as if he saw a ghost for the first time. "This is insane, you've got to slow down, alright? Rest for a bit longer. Yami and I will go on ahead and check the place out."

"What? But-"

"No, just stay here," Joey cut him off. "You're not okay Yugi and if you keep going like this, it's going to kill you. If you only had a chance to look at yourself, you'd understand why I'm saying this."

"Joey, I'm not going to let us be separated. Don't you remember the last time we all separated is what got Tea and Tristan in this predicament in the first place?" Yugi said desperately. He was afraid that if they separated that something bad would happen. "I can walk guys, seriously."

Joey sighed looking frustrated and looked at Yami for his advice.

"Yugi," Yami said. "Joey's right. I think you should stay here."

"But Yami-"

"We'll be right back, alright? We're only scouting the area." Yami looked apologetic. "Besides, if this thing is attracted to you, it's best if you don't go near it anyway. The house isn't too far away; we should only be gone for an hour or so."

Yugi sighed in defeat. He knew that if they both were adamant on him staying, there was no way that he was going to convince them otherwise. He sat back down, ignoring the new pains shooting through his body.

"Alright, but just be careful guys." he said. "Don't go past the tree line."

"Don't worry about us," Joey said. "You just rest up. We'll be back soon."

"Tea?" Yami said looking at her. "Stay with him alright?"

"Yeah, okay." she said. She sat next to Yugi as Yami and Joey went walking off into the woods in the direction of the house. There was silence for a couple of minutes, and the only sounds were that of Yami and Joey's fading footsteps, and that of the rumbling thunder overhead.

"Do I really look that bad?" Yugi said sighing.

"Yugi if I was in their position, I would have told you the same thing." Tea said. She floated closer and looked at him with the same look that Yami and Joey were giving him earlier. "You look pretty bad. Honestly, I'm surprised you _can_ stand."

Yugi said nothing and instead chose to look at a particular blade of grass in the hopes to avoid her transparent gaze. She was silent for a moment before speaking again.

"Yugi, what happened to you anyway? Besides…the whole Shadow thing? When Tristan and I left, you were sick then too…I thought."

"I… _was_ ," Yugi said. He didn't know why she wanted to talk about that now. Looking back, Yugi wished that the problems they had back then were the only things he had to worry about…Like the demon that was in Joey's room. At least then, there were only one of them. Now, who knows? Yugi had no desire to talk about any of that to anyone at the moment but he still hoped Tea would understand that.

"So…what? You're not going to tell me?" Tea said her voice getting low, which Yugi knew that meant she was getting angry. "You're not going to tell me at all? Just like you won't tell Yami and Joey about you wandering around as a spirit at night?"

Yugi quickly looked at her, and she was giving him an accusing stare. "I was going to tell them…eventually. I just wasn't sure how to do it."

"Just tell them. Wouldn't that be easier than avoiding questions or…or lying to them all the time?"

"…No."

Tea's stare went from accusing to confused. "Why?"

Yugi sighed and paused to think before answering. "I don't know if you've noticed the way they look at me now…especially Joey. They're freaked out by it all, and I'd rather not add another reason to the list."

"You're afraid of what everyone will _think_?" Tea said incredulously. "Yugi out all the years we've known each other, when has that ever mattered to any of us?"

When Yugi didn't say anything, Tea calmed herself down and continued.

"Besides, I think you're interpreting them wrong. I don't think Yami and Joey are thinking you as a freak or anything. I think they're just worried about you." She moved closer to Yugi and put a hand on his shoulder. "I am too. You look like you've been through hell this week."

"Well you're not exactly wrong…" Yugi mumbled.

"I'm serious. Maybe we can help you if you tell us what's going on."

Yugi sighed again and looked at Tea. "Look Tea, I appreciate it, but I don't really want to talk about it. Maybe when we get out of this mess…but not now."

Yugi thought that Tea was going to get angry, but she just looked at him sadly and nodded.

"Okay…" she said. Things got quiet between the two of them, and Yugi had to break the silence to take away from the awkwardness, and not only that but to keep his mind off of his aching body.

"So when they get back, what do you think we should do?" he said.

"…I don't know…I guess we'll figure that out when the time comes."

More silence. Not exactly what Yugi had in mind, but it seemed that Tea was no longer in the mood to talk. However, in a couple of minutes, he started to get very dizzy…so much so that he had to lay back down on the ground to try to make it go away.

"Yugi? What's wrong?"

"I'm okay," Yugi said quietly, with his eyes shut. "Just…got dizzy, that's all."

"It's alright," Tea said. Yugi could hear her worry, which made him feel guilty. "Just rest for a bit until they get back. I'll be right here."

Yugi couldn't argue since there was nothing else going on. He closed his eyes and time seemed to fly by. It only seemed like a few seconds later Tea was calling his name again.

"Yugi, wake up!"

His eyes flew open, not even realizing that he had fallen asleep. Tea was kneeling over him trying to get him up.

"Tea? What is it?"

"It's been over two hours since they left. I'm getting really worried that something might have gone wrong."

"It's been over two hours?!" Yugi sat up a little to wake himself up. "How do you know?"

Tea looked up at the stormy sky. The sun had set and the lightning was more prominent now than it was during the day. "Even though there's that weird storm, I can kinda still tell how much time has passed based on how much light there is. But I've been kind of …. counting too. I stopped counting at the hour mark but at least double has passed since then. What if something bad happened to them?"

"Hopefully not. But I guess we should go find them to be sure." Yugi sat up straighter, now fully awake.

"What?" Tea looked at him as if he was crazy. "But Yami said that that thing…it's attracted to you. So what if…?"

"Well what are we supposed to do? Wait here for another couple of hours? They could be in trouble _now_."

Yugi then attempted to stand up, which wasn't one of his brightest ideas of the day. He tried to get up normally, but his body seemed to rebel sending jolts of pain throughout his entire being, which made him fall back down to his hands and knees with a grunt. Painting, he tried to do it again, but was even less successful than before. His body just didn't have enough energy and strangely, the sleep he had for the past couple of hours didn't seem to help any.

"Yugi stop!" Tea kneeled down next to him looking freaked out. "Please, don't try to get up right now. You're only making it worse!"

"But Tea-"

"No." Tea cut him off sternly. "Look. How about if _I_ go and check on them? I'll be really quick like this so it won't take me long and I'll be back before you know it."

"Tea, you shouldn't go alone, we should stick together."

"And you can't go anywhere like this! You need to get to a hospital. There's no way you're going to make it back to the house in the condition you're in."

Yugi contemplated his options. Yami and Joey could be in danger and Tea and Tristan's bodies were definitely in peril. Yugi knew now that he won't be able to walk there, but a better idea came to him.

"Well, if I can't travel like this…" Yugi laid back down on the ground and concentrated. Since the incident with the demon in Joey's room, he always felt like he could leave his body at any time, not just when he was asleep. So why not try it out now?"

"What are you doing?" Tea said.

Yugi didn't answer her and continued to concentrate. In a couple of seconds, he got that dizzying feeling like he was in a tornado, then he was floating above his body with Tea giving him a surprised look.

"Y-Yugi, what?!"

"Now we can both go." he said.

"B-but this is crazy!" Tea looked freaked out again. "What about your body? We can't just leave you… _it_ …here."

"It'll be fine. Right now, we need to check on Yami and Joey. Let's go."

Yugi never thought he traveled faster in his life than when he did then. One second he was with Tea, and they both set off towards the house, then the next, he was flying through the woods faster than he meant to. He stopped abruptly, and looked behind him, wondering where Tea went. She caught up a few seconds later with an annoyed expression on her face.

"At least _wait_ for me, sheesh."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to go that fast."

"Well, at least we're here"

Yugi looked and sure enough, they were standing, no…. floating next to the tree line that marked the edge of the property for the mansion. In the middle of the field, stood the Shadow, menacing and dark without even trying. As it was before, Tristan and Tea's bodies were lain before its feet, like a prize kept close. What was different from before was alarming.

A large circle was seemingly drawn around the shadow on the ground, around fifty feet in diameter. Around the circle was an aura of clear but strong energy that extended up off the ground and into the sky, out of sight. It continuously shimmered, from the ground up, as if it was continuously being fed energy to keep it aloft. What took Yugi by surprise the most, was that there was a man standing outside the circle, staring at the waves of energy. At first he thought it was Yami or Joey, but on closer inspection, it most definitely was not. The man was shorter than either of them, and much older as well. Suddenly, it clicked.

"Tea," Yugi said not taking his eyes off the man, remembering him from a few days ago. "It's the Ranger…remember?"

"W-what's he doing here? The last we saw him was when we first got here, and he lent us the horses…"

Tea trailed off as the Ranger slowly turned his head in their direction. His eyes gave off an air of creepy madness that they did not show before.

"I see the two of you floating over there. Don't think that you kids can hide from me."

Yugi and Tea froze, suddenly on higher alert than they were before.

"H-how…?" was all Tea could say at first. The Ranger chuckled.

"What, you didn't think that _he_ ," the Ranger nudged his head towards Yugi. "was the first one who developed the gift to see spirits did'ja? Nope. Not the first and if I have it my way, won't be the last neither."

"H-how did you know about that?" Yugi said fearfully. He didn't like how things were sounding already.

"Son, I know more than ya think," The Ranger said and left it at that. Yugi tried a different approach.

"What are you doing? What's happening?" Yugi asked looking from him to the Shadow that stood on the other side of the energy barrier.

The Ranger laughed. "Well what does it look like?"

He looked towards the Shadow again, and Yugi and Tea followed his gaze and gasped. Yugi didn't even notice before, but upon closer inspection, saw that Yami and Joey were inside the barrier. They looked unhurt, but frightened of the Shadow, which was still doing nothing. The two of them were as far away from the Shadow as they could get, yet the clear and shimmering walls of the barrier seemed to stop them from getting out of its range.

"They're trapped…" Yugi said and then looked angrily at the Ranger. "What is this?"

The Ranger turned around fully to face them and laughed again, as if he was waiting for their conversation to get to this point for a while. "What do you know of…the _veil_?"

"Th-the what?" Tea said with a raised eyebrow, as he changed his tone. She obviously thought that this man was crazy and Yugi would agree with her. The Ranger smiled showing his toothless grin, now talking without his fake hillbilly accent.

"The Veil!" the Ranger continued. "Some call it the bridge between worlds. It was constructed by ancient spirits back when the earth was still young. Normally it acts as a barrier, keeping bad spirits out and it filters out large amounts of energy from reaching the earth. That's why people built ways to use everyday objects to allow them to channel and use energy. Like your Millennium Puzzle."

"H-how do you know about-" Yugi started but the Ranger cut him off.

"Unimportant! Just know that this barrier," he motioned where the Shadow was inside. "Is where I've created a gash in the veil allowing anything, like spirits, inside of it to become visible."

"What?!" Tea looked frightened. "You mean if the Veil disappears, anybody could see spirits and stuff?"

"Oh, you can do _more_ than just see spirits without a Veil around." The Ranger grinned even more manically than before. "How about I show you two, first hand?"

Without waiting for a response, the Ranger brought up his hand and snapped his fingers. Immediately there was a change in the barrier. It shuddered, and the Shadow inside groaned. Suddenly, the circumference of the tear in the Veil started to expand. It started out slowly, then rushed outwards engulfing Yugi, Tea and the Ranger. The air seemed to tremble and the sky shuddered. When it stopped expanding, the circle the barrier encompassed was about a half mile in diameter, and now had everybody inside.

Now Yugi knew what the Ranger had meant when he talked about the limitless energy that came forth when the Veil was absent. The amount of energy that flowed through him now seemed fathomless, raw and almost uncontrollable. It was almost a shock to have it suddenly flow through, and looking at Tea, he knew she was thinking the same thing. The Ranger however, started to laugh.

"Can ya feel it?" he said taking in a deep breath as if he was enjoying a relaxing summer morning. "Almost makes ya feel like anything's possible, doesn't it?"

Yugi didn't say anything. He looked at Tea, and realized that she seemed even more solid than she did before. Almost as if she wasn't just a spirit at the moment. Yugi knew that he must have looked the same way.

Behind her, Yugi saw Yami and Joey looking at them with shocked expressions on their faces. Yugi wanted to yell some sort of recognition to them but before he could do so, the Shadow shuddered. It's form, now more tangible than before, started to quake and suddenly it seemed to be more alive than it was before.

"Oh, and I forgot to mention," the Ranger said looking at Yugi. "In order to have enough energy to expand the tear in the veil, the Shadow needs to absorb you and your Pharaoh friend…. seeing as how the Shade was banished to the Shadow Realm."

"W-what?!" Yugi said looking from the Ranger to the Shadow. "Why are you doing this?"

The Shadow seemed aware of their presence finally. If it had eyes, they would be staring right into their very souls. The Ranger chuckled at his question.

"For the greater good," he said. He looked at the Shadow and nodded. "Feast."

A low grumble came from the Shadow, and suddenly everything became darker than normal, almost like something blocked out what could be seen from the setting sun. However, everything was still visible, as if cloaked in shadow. The Shadow itself started to walk and yet, it seemed to be absorbed by its surroundings at the same time. In the confusion, Yami's voice rang out loud and clear.

"Yugi, look out!"

Suddenly, a sharp pain came over his entire astral body. His energy started to leave him and his knees buckled. He heard Tea yell and a screech. When Yugi's vision came back into focus and the pain subsided he saw what surprised him. Yami was once again engaging the Shadow in combat. However, with a tear in the Veil, what Yami had done with the Puzzle before almost seemed like child's play compared to now. Large energy balls erupted from his palms faster than Yugi could count and they exploded on the Shadow's form. The Shadow continued to screech and stumble as Yami continued his onslaught. However, the attacks seemed to hold it off, but not hurt it any farther than that.

"Well that's annoying," the Ranger said. He started to advance towards Yami apparently to try and fix the problem.

"Joey!" Yugi yelled, with strength he didn't have a second ago. Seeing everyone in danger brought on the adrenaline he needed, which was good because he was running on empty at this point. Luckily Joey heard him though and realized what was going on. He stepped in between Yami and the Ranger.

"If you wanna get to him, you're gonna gave to get through me."

"That can be arranged." the Ranger said. He brought up both hands, and like Yami, focused his energy into them creating two large energy spheres. Joey gulped. "Let's see how long this lasts."

He lobbed the energy ball towards Joey and it hit him in the leg, as he tried to dodge it, He fell to the ground but then immediately stood back up again wincing.

"That's a dirty trick!" he yelled over the screeching of the Shadow. The Ranger laughed.

"You call it a trick but I call it natural. Did you know that in the beginning of this planet, there wasn't a Veil at all? All over the world it was like this! It is unnatural now that we even have a Veil. So go ahead and call it a 'trick.' I will still defeat you all and bring the Earth back to its prior state."

As the Ranger geared for another attack, Yugi stood up and looked at Tea.

"Tea, go and see if you can wake Tristan up."

Tea didn't seem to hear him at first. She continued to look back and forth between Joey and Yami, as if unsure who needed more help. Then, after a few more seconds, she looked at him with a frightened expression.

"And _then_ what?" she said.

"We're going to need distractions. After you wake up Tristan, get back in your body. You'll be safer that way. Then help Yami. He needs someone to distract the Shadow. He can't send it to the Shadow Realm with it attacking him. I'm going to help Joey."

She just stared at him as if he was crazy. Yugi started to get impatient.

"Tea, you need to do this! I can't help Yami, that Shadow will just absorb me and get stronger. It's also less likely to hurt someone badly who's in their body-"

"Alright, alright," she said cutting him off. "I'm just worried…never mind."

With that, she ran off towards her and Tristan's bodies. Yugi felt confused as to what she was trying to say but then got over it. Joey needed help. He looked over at Joey and during his and Tea's brief talk, the Ranger had gotten Joey on the ground and was about to attack him again.

Without thinking as to whether or not it would work, Yugi willed himself to fly over to the Ranger as fast as he could. Thankfully he didn't faze right through the Ranger but collided with him, knocking him to the ground. Joey looked surprised as he got up.

"Woah," he said looking at Yugi. "Nice hit."

Before Yugi could say anything, the Ranger stood up again, looking angry.

"Well _that_ won't happen again," he said with more energy in his palms. He shot towards them.

Yugi didn't know what being hit with energy felt like as a spirit, but now he did. It hurt and his entire being hummed with pain. Joey seemed to recover quickly. He ran over to the Ranger and took a few well aimed punches.

However, with the Veil down in this area, the energy seemed to give the Ranger unfathomable speed. He was able to dodge each of Joey's punches and throw in one for good measure. Joey took a few steps backwards to catch his breath. The guy seemed to be toying with him.

"Man this old guy can hit…"

Yugi looked on helplessly. He was weak and wasn't any help to Joey. Beyond them, he saw Tea trying to wake Tristan up with no results. Yugi wasn't sure what was wrong with him but he hoped that he was okay. To his right, Yami was still battling the Shadow, and losing by the looks of it. Yami seemed to be losing energy while every time Yami took a second to regain his strength, it regained its bearings and seemed fine.

They were losing this battle, and needed help. Who could they count on? There were no more humans for miles and the last of the spirits were destroyed and moved on.

" _Wait…the spirits_ …" Yugi thought. The idea came to him suddenly and as easily as a gust of wind. What if he was able to use his ability further? What if he could talk to… no, _summon_ all of the ghosts that were around to this spot? There _had_ to be more around…

It seemed absolutely crazy and outlandish, but he figured there wasn't much to lose. Yugi closed his eyes and focused on the area around them, calling out to any spirits that were nearby. He was only vaguely aware of Joey running up to the Ranger again to hit him, and the sounds of the Shadow's screeches seemed like dull moans. He sat there what seemed to be minutes, and then he could feel a stir in the earth. Then out of nowhere, he could see hundreds of human spirits swirling around in the beneath the crust. Yugi wasn't sure what they were all doing there, but he used his willpower to bring them to him. Then, there was a roar in his ears that had nothing to do with the Shadow screeching from Yami's latest attack.

Yugi opened his eyes to see the hundreds of spirits he summoned flying around inside the Veil barrier they were in like a horde of hornets. They seemed angry and agitated as if someone had woken them up from a long sleep…which Yugi thought he had. He willed them all to calm down so that he could speak to them, and miraculously, they seemed to slow down their pace.

"Listen!" he yelled up to them. "We need your help!"

None of them seemed to be listening however. Most of them were flying around in a frenzy, others were floating still, staring off into space.

There were a lot of assortment of people: most of them were old looking but others were middle aged men and women. There were also some children in the mix but they were some of the ones who were flying around like maniacs, so Yugi tried to ignore them.

"Look, this world is going to be destroyed unless you help!" he yelled. However, he may have yelled at the sky for the response he got. He willed himself up higher to grab their attention, but most ignored him.

The Shadow then let out it's loudest shriek yet. Some of the spirits had started to attack the Shadow by ramming themselves into its form. The Shadow, growing annoyed was starting to swipe at the air and throwing shadow energy in all different directions. This got all the rest of the spirits in a frenzy once more, and realizing what was happening, started to all attack the Shadow in retaliation.

Yugi watched in awe as the massive amounts of ghosts overtook the Shadow and forced it to the ground. It screeched in protest.

"No!" the Ranger yelled throwing Joey off of him. He ran closer to the Shadow throwing energy at passerby spirits in the hopes to get rid of them. However, there were just too many.

"Yami, banish it now!" Yugi yelled. Yami didn't need telling twice. With a spark from the Millennium Puzzle, the purple void started to open up above the Shadow, and within a few minutes, the Shadow Realm was present in all of its dark glory.

However, Yami seemed to underestimate how much energy he used under the absence of the Veil and the entrance to the Shadow Realm seemed to grow much larger than what Yami wanted. The opening didn't just seem to suck just the Shadow in, but everything else around it including some spirits. He ran from it, helping Tea and Tristan to stay clear as much as possible. Yugi rushed down to Joey and watched as the Shadow was slowly sucked in.

In the last second before the Shadow was completely absorbed, it made a wild grab for something to hang onto. The first thing it grabbed onto was the Ranger, who yelled and protested as they both were sucked into the void. Once they both disappeared, the entrance to the Shadow Realm shrunk and vanished, leaving the area with a lot of angry spirits. With nothing to attack, the spirits swarmed off and vanished from sight.

Like clockwork, the barrier that kept them inside the area with the tear in the Veil started to shrink. Yugi stood next to Joey as they watched it get smaller and smaller, as if it was healing itself. In a minute, the tear in the Veil was gone, and the barrier had vanished, leaving the area normal. The darkness left the area, and all of the storm clouds that were in the sky vacated leaving the setting sunlight to permeate the treetops.

"That was close…" Yugi said, but then realized that Joey couldn't hear him. He was still a spirit himself and with the Veil back as it should, no one could see or hear him like that. Joey seemed to realize that too, as he started looking around in confusion as if wondering where he went.

"Joey!" Yami yelled. Yugi and Joey looked to see Yami kneeling next to Tristan and Tea.

"What's wrong?" Joey said as he went over and kneeled next to him. Yugi looked and saw how tired Yami was, and how pale Tea and Tristan looked. He hoped everyone was going to be alright…

Just then, Tea started to stir. In a moment, she opened her eyes, sat up and was looking around in confusion.

"Hey, you alright Tea?" Joey asked. She shook her head as if to clear it and looked up at him and Yami, frightened.

"That was the worst nightmare I've ever had," she said. She then saw Tristan who was still unconscious and her eyes widened. "That's…because it was real…wasn't it?"

"'Fraid so Tea," Joey said as Yami started to shake Tristan to wake him up. After a minute of doing that, Yami looked at Tea tiredly.

"Tea, do you remember what they did to you two? Did they do anything different to Tristan?"

She blinked as if going through the events in order in her head, trying to remember.

"I don't know…I was the first one they knocked out."

As she said this, Yugi suddenly felt as if all of his adrenaline had left him. His vision started to go in and out of focus and he barely had any willpower left to move himself around. As if he knew, Joey looked around in confusion again.

"So, where did Yugi go?"

Yugi kneeled on the ground, his vision going in and out of focus. He heard Tea gasp.

"That's right, he was out of his body…I wonder if he went back in it?"

Joey blinked.

"He did _what now_?"

"He did mention doing that once…" Yami said looking up. Tea looked like she was going to say something but stopped herself from doing so.

"Where is he now?" Joey asked looking at Tea.

"He left his body back where you made camp earlier."

Yugi vaguely saw Joey stand up, his stance strained as if he had trouble standing up straight.

"I'll go and get him. You guys stay here and get Tristan up."

"Wait, you want to go alone?" Tea said, her eyes wide. Yami sighed.

"Most of the spirits left the area. Joey should be fine." he said wearily. "Just hurry back, alright?"

Joey nodded, and turned around to go back to their makeshift campsite. Through his haze, Yugi panicked. If he didn't follow Joey, he wouldn't know how to get back to his body. He didn't exactly remember how they got in. However, he could barely move let alone keep up with Joey. He could wait for Joey to bring his body back and then go back inside, but he didn't want to worry everyone more by having them think that he was dead or something.

A thought occurred to him much like his idea to summon spirits did before. What if he just willed himself straight back into his body without the travel? It would be different from before and maybe take less energy than actual moving...like teleporting. Yugi then focused on his body and put his will to get back inside it. Suddenly, he felt dizzy, like he was in a tornado. When he opened his eyes, he was back at the campsite, back in his own body.

"Wow…that worked." he groaned. His voice sounded tired and his vision still was going in and out of focus, which didn't help his vertigo. He attempted to sit up, but was only greeted with pain erupting from his entire being. For some reason it was worse than before. He wasn't sure if it was from his body or his astral body. Everything had caught up with him all at once, all at the same time. With great effort he managed to sit up against the nearest tree, however that only seemed to make everything worse. He couldn't get his breathing under control and he felt that if he moved any more than he did, he would pass out.

So Yugi sat there for a while…he really couldn't tell how much time passed because he didn't pay attention. Then suddenly, Joey was next to him, trying to shake him awake. When Yugi opened his eyes, he only could see a fuzzy outline of what almost looked like Joey. He tried to say something, but he could only groan.

"Oh man…Yugi?" Joey said. Yugi thought it was miraculous that could hear him. "Hold on bud. We're getting outta here."

Yugi felt himself get lifted off the ground and carried off into the darkness. The next thing he knew, when he opened his eyes, he thought he had gone blind. Darkness was all that he could see. However, when his eyes got a little more adjusted to his surroundings, through the fuzziness of his vision, he could see trees through the darkness. He _hadn't_ gone blind… it was just nighttime.

"How long should we give him?" said a voice near him. Right away Yugi recognized it as Tea. She sounded close but on the other side of his vision.

"A few hours at least. I would give him all night if we could…" said another voice. That was Joey. "Yami used up a lot of energy."

"I know, but Yugi and Tristan…the faster they get to a hospital the better though…" Tea said.

"I think Yami used up a little too much energy. He needs rest too ya know." Joey said. Tea didn't say anything.

Yugi tried to get himself up more, but his body was like a lead brick and he couldn't move it, even the slightest bit. Nobody was in his direct line of vision (or lack thereof) so he couldn't really tell what was going on exactly. With the way the lighting was, it seemed like his head was facing away from a campfire.

"Tristan still hasn't moved?" Joey said.

"No…I don't know what's wrong…" Tea said with a worried sigh. "How are we going to get back home? We don't have the horses anymore…"

"We'll just have to carry those two. We've put off leaving for a week. We can't keep doing it. To be honest, I don't know why we kept putting it off before…"

There was silence where all that could be heard was the crackling of the fire and the crickets chirping in the distance. Yugi shut his eyes in an attempt to will his pain and weariness away. He wanted to be of some use and to help them get out of the forest. Except now, he was doing the opposite and being a hindrance. None of the bad feelings went away however, and he could do nothing but lay there in a foggy haze.

"What about Yugi?" Tea said suddenly. "Does he look any better?"

There was silence for another minute before Joey spoke up.

"No." he said. Joey hesitated before speaking again. "Yugi's not gonna be able to walk outta here Tea. He's pretty messed up. When I went to get him after Yami got rid of the Shadow, I walked up to him and thought…I thought he was dead. I still wonder every time I look at him…"

"Joey…" Tea said in a frightened voice. She sounded like she was trying not to cry.

"Sorry Tea." Joey said hastily. "I shouldn't have said that. He's going be fine. _Everyone_ is going to be fine. In a few hours, we're gonna get Yami up and we're all getting out of this place and somehow hitch a ride to a hospital."

There was a moment of silence before Tea spoke up again.

"So we're only giving him a few hours before we wake him up?" she said faintly.

"…Yeah."

Silence reigned until Yugi found himself once again in the realm of unconsciousness. The next thing he knew, he wasn't where he expected himself to be. He found himself standing in the middle of what looked like a storm cloud. Dark wispy clouds whirled around him in a frenzy as the wind blew them in all different directions. Flashes and arcs of lightening were seen in the deepest confines of the clouds, but none of them came near him. Rumbles of thunder could be heard occasionally but other than that, it was mostly quiet. Like how it was when the Shadow was still roaming the woods, rain did not fall by any stretch of the imagination. Yugi looked around in confusion.

"Wait…am I dreaming?" he wondered out loud.

"I wouldn't call it dreaming, but you're not exactly awake, either." a voice said from behind.

Yugi spun around to see a bunch of people standing behind him. There must have been at least one hundred of them. The one that spoke to him was an old man that stood out in front of the rest. Yugi recognized him immediately, and then realized who all those people were.

"You're all the spirits that were at the house!" he said wide eyed. The old man in front was the same old man who he had talked to before. Yugi looked at him questioningly. "What do you mean this isn't a dream?"

The old man looked a little uncomfortable. "Well son, you're asleep and this is in your head, but we are very much real."

Yugi understood what he meant. "But if you're all here, what happened to you back there? I thought you were all sent… _on_."

"Yes," the old man nodded. "That is what happened. However, we were granted special permission to be able to talk to you once more before our spirits fully passed on."

The old man looked back behind him at all the other spirits, as if communicating silently. Thunder rumbled through the silence. Among the people scattered about, Yugi saw the little girl that had vouched for him before when the old man had attacked him. Before, the gash on her head left blood stains on her dress. Now, she could be a different person. The little girl looked normal, happy and unhurt. She saw him looking and waved cheerfully.

"We, as a whole," the old man said turning his back to the spirits behind him again and looking Yugi straight in the eyes. "We all wanted to thank you. You and your friends not only helped us out, but you saved the world as well. We are truly in your debt."

The old man bowed, and in unison, all of the other spirits did as well. Lightning struck the air around them but it was ignored… Yugi could feel himself getting red in the face from embarrassment.

"N-no really, it's alright. You don't need to bow or anything…please…"

All of the spirits stood up straight, the old man looking somber.

"But it is not alright," he said. "The world may be saved, but your life now hangs in the balance…and I am afraid that is partially my fault."

Lightning crackled again as silence reigned between them. Yugi couldn't really argue with the old man because it was partially true. That pain spell that he put on him nearly got him killed. However, he didn't want him passing on thinking that he had almost ruined Yugi's life.

"It's not all your fault-"

Yugi was cut off by a small thin boy walking out from the crowd. He looked nervous as everyone started to stare at him. Yugi immediately recognized him as the boy who poisoned his drink the first night at the house. After then, he couldn't eat anything and feared starving to death, until the curse was lifted. However, Yugi felt no anger towards the boy, just apprehension.

"Hi mister…" the boy said. He looked down at his feet as he spoke. "Sorry for…what I did…they made me do it…"

Before Yugi could respond, the little girl he was looking at earlier came up next to the little boy.

"I'm sorry too!" she said looking determined to say her peace. "I scared you and made you sad!"

Then suddenly, mumbling rippled throughout the crowd, and at first Yugi couldn't tell what they were all saying. But then they got louder in unison and Yugi realized that they were all saying the same thing:

"Sorry…"

"I'm so sorry!"

"Dear lad! I'm sorry!"

"I beg your pardon good sir!"

"Sorry Mister!"

It was heartwarming to say the least, but it was getting overwhelming. Yugi put his hands up in order for them to stop apologizing.

"I get it! It's alright. I understand."

They all became quiet immediately, and stared at him. Yugi sighed.

"Look, I know people can do bad things if they're angry or scared…but that doesn't make you bad people. You all helped us defeat the Shade and the Shadow, so that's got to count for something, right?"

The old man smiled and nodded.

"You flatter us with kind words," the old man became serious all of a sudden as more thunder rumbled overhead…closer this time. "But this is not the main reason we came to seek you out."

Yugi looked confused but let the old man continue.

"We came to warn you…about your Grandfather…Solomon"

"W-what? Why? What's wrong with him?"

"I heard you and your friends speaking a few days ago. It is because of your Grandfather that you came to seek out that house in the first place, yes? Would he really have sent you to your doom?"

Yugi thought about it. All week he had been wondering why his Grandfather had sent them to his old, decrepit house. It's not like these spirits were new. Some of these ghost had been inside that house for decades. So what was the real reason Solomon had sent them there? When Yugi didn't answer him, the old man continued.

"Solomon was once a good friend of mine." he said. Yugi looked at him in shock.

"He was?!"

"Yes. I knew him well enough to know that he would never have sent his grandchild and his friends back to this house for any reason. He didn't even want people to know that the house existed."

"What happened?"

Lightening streaked closer this time and a few of the spirits jumped. They were all getting restless.

"I cannot explain now. We are running out of time." the old man said now looking worried. "I cannot say for sure, but something may not be right with your Grandfather. Be wary in his presence if you choose to live through your injuries."

The horde of spirits began to fade, including the old man. Storm clouds billowed around them until only their shadows remained.

"W-wait!" Yugi yelled. "What do you mean?"

"Good luck," said the old man with his fading voice. Soon Yugi was left alone and the stormy atmosphere around him began to fade as well.


End file.
